Freed Ethiopian Woman Urges Migrants to Stay Home After Harrowing Ordeal in Libya

TORONTO, Canada (AX) — The haunting visage of Nehima Jamal, a young Ethiopian woman of merely twenty summers, has lingered like an unsettling specter across digital platforms. Captured by traffickers in Libya, her image—tied, gagged, and battered—was used as a pawn to demand ransom. Now liberated, she opens up about the chilling odyssey that left her teetering on the brink of despair. Her testimony stands as a grave warning for others who may be contemplating a similar perilous path.

Liberation came at a steep price—700,000 Ethiopian Birr, a staggering amount for her family back home, equivalent to roughly $5,546. This sum was their ticket to wresting her from weeks of dire captivity in a Libyan city. Recalling that fateful episode, Jamal’s voice, marred by tremors of distress, carries the weight of her physical and emotional scars. “The simplest things now paralyze me—like making a phone call,” she confides, eyes damp with sorrow.

Her journey began in the bustling town of Shashemene, nestled within Ethiopia’s Oromia region. Enticed by the ephemeral promise of employment relayed by an intermediary, she journeyed through Addis Ababa and Gondar. But what lengths will we go to grasp the mirage of a better life?

However, this dream morphed swiftly into a waking nightmare. Along the treacherous route, two companions succumbed to the unforgiving elements of the Libyan desert. “Dehydration and exhaustion claimed their lives,” she recounts somberly, admitting she lacked the strength for a proper burial. Her own capture occurred shortly after breaching the border in May, ensnared by armed factions in Libya’s notorious Kufra, a hub teeming with illicit trafficking.

The torment didn’t cease there. Forced to bow to the visceral persuasion of grisly visual evidence, her family received graphic videos and photos—stark reminders of her plight. One harrowing clip depicted her bound and gagged, blood marking her clothes, as relentless beatings compelled her family into submission to the traffickers’ extortionate demands.

Amongst the roughly fifty other desperate souls behind her in the video, appeared beings shadows of their former selves—emaciated, their eyes void of hope, brimming with fatigue and terror.

The initial ransom of $6,000 imposed by her captors, eventually negotiated to a lesser amount, further illustrates the inhuman conditions, articulated best by Jamal herself: “Our treatment was beyond dehumanizing. We were less than nothing.”

Now, a specter of her former self, Jamal grapples with profound regret over leaving her homeland. Yet, she entertains an aspiration, however fragile, to relocate elsewhere. “Maybe to another country, if the Divine so wills,” she whispers, both hopeful and hopeless.

But wisdom hard-earned forms the core of her admonishment to others contemplating this heart-wrenching exodus. “Better to stay home,” she urges. Disease, death, and danger pepper the path. Her mind wanders back to friends who became mere memories amidst the sand dunes.

Reflections from her sister, Iftu Jamal, shared in a BBC interview poignantly capture Nehima’s story—a school dropout at eleventh grade, chasing dreams that spiraled into a nightmare, ensnared by traffickers preying on the vulnerable hope of migrants.

Critics, including human rights organizations, have condemned the conspicuous absence of global measures to thwart trafficking in Libya, depicting the region as a somber burial ground for African migrants—particularly Black Africans fleeing the relentless cycles of poverty and conflict.

Refugees in Libya, a beacon for those lost in the fray, report the routine abduction of migrants by traffickers who extract ransoms through brutal coercion. Many of these stories close with a full stop, never to be celebrated homecomings.

“Libya is a death trap for many Africans,” an organizational spokesperson solemnly declared. “Lives transformed into mere bargaining chips, within a merciless system preying on human vulnerability.”

Edited By Ali Musa
Axadle Times International—Monitoring