Black Africans in Libya
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They're robbing, killing, wounding and insulting poor black Africans stuck in Libya.
Libyan War Traps Poor Immigrants at Tripoli’s Edge
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and SCOTT SAYARE
TRIPOLI, Libya — As wealthier nations send boats and planes to rescue their citizens from the violence in Libya, a new refugee crisis is taking shape on the outskirts of Tripoli, where thousands of migrant workers from sub-Saharan Africa have been trapped with scant food and water, no international aid and little hope of escape.
The migrants — many of them illegal immigrants from Ghana and Nigeria who have long constituted an impoverished underclass in Libya — live amid piles of garbage, sleep in makeshift tents of blankets strung from fences and trees, and breathe fumes from a trench of excrement dividing their camp from the parking lot of Tripoli’s airport.
For dinner on Monday night two men killed a scrawny, half-plucked chicken by dunking it in water boiled on a garbage fire, then hacked it apart with a dull knife and cooked it over an open fire. Some residents of the camp are as young as Essem Ighalo, 9 days old, who arrived on his second day of life and has yet to see a doctor. Many refugees said they had seen deaths from hunger and disease every night.
The airport refugees, along with tens of thousands of other African migrants lucky enough to make it across the border to Tunisia, are the most desperate contingent of a vast exodus that has already sent almost 200,000 foreigners fleeing the country since the outbreak of the popular revolt against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi nearly three weeks ago.
Dark-skinned Africans say the Libyan war has caught them in a vise. The heavily armed police and militia forces loyal to Colonel Qaddafi who guard checkpoints along the roads around the capital rob them of their money, possessions and cellphone chips, the migrants say. And the Libyans who oppose Colonel Qaddafi lash out at the African migrants because they look like the dark-skinned mercenaries many here say the Libyan leader has recruited to crush the uprising.
“Qaddafi has brought African soldiers to ? some of them, so if they see black people they beat them,” said Samson Adda, 31, who said residents of Zawiyah, a rebellious city, had beaten him so badly that he could no longer walk.
Sub-Saharan Africans make up a vast majority of the estimated 1.5 million illegal immigrants among Libya’s population of 6.5 million, according to the International Organization for Migration. Many were desperately poor people made even more so by investments of up to $1,000 each to pay smugglers to bring them across Libya’s southern border for a chance at better work in its oil economy.
Their flight has emptied the streets of thousands of day laborers who played a crucial, if largely unheralded, role in sustaining Libya’s economy. Their absence has played a role in halting construction projects that had been rising across the skyline.
They are trapped in part because most lack passports or other documents necessary to board a plane or cross the border. Few can afford a plane ticket. They say they are afraid to leave the airport or try their luck on the roads to the border for fear of assaults by Libyan citizens or at militia checkpoints.
They complain bitterly of betrayal by their home governments, which have failed to help evacuate them even as Egyptian, Bangladeshi and Chinese migrant workers who crowded the airport a week ago have found a way out.
And international aid workers, who have raced to minister to the hundreds of thousands camped on the borders, say the migrants trapped at the airport remain beyond their reach. The Libyan government’s tight security and the threat of violence on the streets of Tripoli have apparently prevented any international aid groups from reaching the makeshift camps.
“We are operating out of Benghazi,” said Jean-Philippe Chauzy of the International Organization for Migration, referring to the eastern Libyan city that is the headquarters of the rebellion. “But unfortunately because of the conditions we can’t help them out of Tripoli.”
The outbreak of violence in Tripoli around Feb. 20 sent migrants of all kinds fleeing for the airport. Until recently, desperate hordes of all nationalities were sleeping packed together on the floors of the terminals or in the fields and parking lots outside. Guards with whips and clubs beat them back to clear the entrance.
Despite Colonel Qaddafi’s brotherly pan-African rhetoric, racial xenophobia is common here. Many Libyans, ethnically Arab, look down on Chinese, Bangladeshis and darker-skinned Africans, in that order. Many African refugees here and in the camps on the Tunisian border say Libyans often addressed them as “abd,” or slave.
“Even if someone stabs you with a knife and you go to the police to report it, they won’t do anything about it,” said Paul Eke, 34, a Nigerian who was camped out at the Tunisian border, displaying a mangled arm as evidence of his firsthand experience. “In the hospitals, no one will care for you. They just don’t like blacks.”
But many said it was the presence of mercenaries from other African countries that made the situation unbearable. “Qaddafi brought the mercenaries who are black, so the people are chasing us,” one 30-year-old Nigerian said.
Perhaps as many as 100,000 refugees, most of them sub-Saharan Africans, have made it to the Tunisian camps, where groups like the Red Crescent, the Muslim counterpart to the Red Cross, care for the sick. The United States has lent planes to fly Egyptian refugees home from Tunisia.
But the crowds left at the airport, now almost exclusively African, have no such support. Some have been there for two weeks or more.
Several said that someone — perhaps with a local charity, perhaps with the Libyan government — had given them each a biscuit. On Monday refugees holding bottles lined up at the back of a tanker truck dispensing water.
But an exploitative economy has also sprung up. A group of burly, well-dressed men stood by a sport utility vehicle in the parking lot holding thick stacks of dollars, euros and Libyan dinars and offering to change money at usurious rates.
Many of the workers had been paid in foreign currency but need to change it to buy a Coke, a candy bar, or perhaps an emaciated chicken from the vendors who have turned up to profit from the camps. Several refugees said a live chicken cost about $8 in the camp, more than four times what it might have cost before the crisis.
Bathing is another problem. A Ghanaian woman said angrily that she had not washed in nine days.
“Some women try to wash naked in the bushes,” a Nigerian man said. “It is an abomination.”
But many said the worst indignity was being robbed of their few possessions either by soldiers with machine guns or by young civilians carrying knives.
“The most painful thing is this: A lot of people buy things, for more than two years they are gathering their own money to keep their own things that they will take to Nigeria,” the Nigerian man said. “But the little things that you have — like tele, plasma, clothes, shoes, bags, all your assets — they take everything.”
Another man added: “Just imagine: We are poor people, and they are robbing us. They are taking our dinars, our euros, our pounds. They are taking our mobile phones and SIM cards.”
The loss of the cellphones — the Libyan government is confiscating them apparently to prevent the circulation of cellphone pictures of the unrest — means that many of the refugees have been unable to tell their families they are alive, several said.
Many said that after waiting days for people from their embassies to help arrange their travel papers, they had given up hope in their home countries.
“We are somebody and we are from somewhere,” said Abru Razak, 35, a Nigerian with two daughters, 2 and 5, at the airport. “Even when we get into the airport they are beating us and pushing us. We are dying. Tell the United Nations they should get us away from here — to anywhere, just to save our lives.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/08/world/middleeast/08refugees.html?hp=&pagewanted=all
Libyan War Traps Poor Immigrants at Tripoli’s Edge
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and SCOTT SAYARE
TRIPOLI, Libya — As wealthier nations send boats and planes to rescue their citizens from the violence in Libya, a new refugee crisis is taking shape on the outskirts of Tripoli, where thousands of migrant workers from sub-Saharan Africa have been trapped with scant food and water, no international aid and little hope of escape.
The migrants — many of them illegal immigrants from Ghana and Nigeria who have long constituted an impoverished underclass in Libya — live amid piles of garbage, sleep in makeshift tents of blankets strung from fences and trees, and breathe fumes from a trench of excrement dividing their camp from the parking lot of Tripoli’s airport.
For dinner on Monday night two men killed a scrawny, half-plucked chicken by dunking it in water boiled on a garbage fire, then hacked it apart with a dull knife and cooked it over an open fire. Some residents of the camp are as young as Essem Ighalo, 9 days old, who arrived on his second day of life and has yet to see a doctor. Many refugees said they had seen deaths from hunger and disease every night.
The airport refugees, along with tens of thousands of other African migrants lucky enough to make it across the border to Tunisia, are the most desperate contingent of a vast exodus that has already sent almost 200,000 foreigners fleeing the country since the outbreak of the popular revolt against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi nearly three weeks ago.
Dark-skinned Africans say the Libyan war has caught them in a vise. The heavily armed police and militia forces loyal to Colonel Qaddafi who guard checkpoints along the roads around the capital rob them of their money, possessions and cellphone chips, the migrants say. And the Libyans who oppose Colonel Qaddafi lash out at the African migrants because they look like the dark-skinned mercenaries many here say the Libyan leader has recruited to crush the uprising.
“Qaddafi has brought African soldiers to ? some of them, so if they see black people they beat them,” said Samson Adda, 31, who said residents of Zawiyah, a rebellious city, had beaten him so badly that he could no longer walk.
Sub-Saharan Africans make up a vast majority of the estimated 1.5 million illegal immigrants among Libya’s population of 6.5 million, according to the International Organization for Migration. Many were desperately poor people made even more so by investments of up to $1,000 each to pay smugglers to bring them across Libya’s southern border for a chance at better work in its oil economy.
Their flight has emptied the streets of thousands of day laborers who played a crucial, if largely unheralded, role in sustaining Libya’s economy. Their absence has played a role in halting construction projects that had been rising across the skyline.
They are trapped in part because most lack passports or other documents necessary to board a plane or cross the border. Few can afford a plane ticket. They say they are afraid to leave the airport or try their luck on the roads to the border for fear of assaults by Libyan citizens or at militia checkpoints.
They complain bitterly of betrayal by their home governments, which have failed to help evacuate them even as Egyptian, Bangladeshi and Chinese migrant workers who crowded the airport a week ago have found a way out.
And international aid workers, who have raced to minister to the hundreds of thousands camped on the borders, say the migrants trapped at the airport remain beyond their reach. The Libyan government’s tight security and the threat of violence on the streets of Tripoli have apparently prevented any international aid groups from reaching the makeshift camps.
“We are operating out of Benghazi,” said Jean-Philippe Chauzy of the International Organization for Migration, referring to the eastern Libyan city that is the headquarters of the rebellion. “But unfortunately because of the conditions we can’t help them out of Tripoli.”
The outbreak of violence in Tripoli around Feb. 20 sent migrants of all kinds fleeing for the airport. Until recently, desperate hordes of all nationalities were sleeping packed together on the floors of the terminals or in the fields and parking lots outside. Guards with whips and clubs beat them back to clear the entrance.
Despite Colonel Qaddafi’s brotherly pan-African rhetoric, racial xenophobia is common here. Many Libyans, ethnically Arab, look down on Chinese, Bangladeshis and darker-skinned Africans, in that order. Many African refugees here and in the camps on the Tunisian border say Libyans often addressed them as “abd,” or slave.
“Even if someone stabs you with a knife and you go to the police to report it, they won’t do anything about it,” said Paul Eke, 34, a Nigerian who was camped out at the Tunisian border, displaying a mangled arm as evidence of his firsthand experience. “In the hospitals, no one will care for you. They just don’t like blacks.”
But many said it was the presence of mercenaries from other African countries that made the situation unbearable. “Qaddafi brought the mercenaries who are black, so the people are chasing us,” one 30-year-old Nigerian said.
Perhaps as many as 100,000 refugees, most of them sub-Saharan Africans, have made it to the Tunisian camps, where groups like the Red Crescent, the Muslim counterpart to the Red Cross, care for the sick. The United States has lent planes to fly Egyptian refugees home from Tunisia.
But the crowds left at the airport, now almost exclusively African, have no such support. Some have been there for two weeks or more.
Several said that someone — perhaps with a local charity, perhaps with the Libyan government — had given them each a biscuit. On Monday refugees holding bottles lined up at the back of a tanker truck dispensing water.
But an exploitative economy has also sprung up. A group of burly, well-dressed men stood by a sport utility vehicle in the parking lot holding thick stacks of dollars, euros and Libyan dinars and offering to change money at usurious rates.
Many of the workers had been paid in foreign currency but need to change it to buy a Coke, a candy bar, or perhaps an emaciated chicken from the vendors who have turned up to profit from the camps. Several refugees said a live chicken cost about $8 in the camp, more than four times what it might have cost before the crisis.
Bathing is another problem. A Ghanaian woman said angrily that she had not washed in nine days.
“Some women try to wash naked in the bushes,” a Nigerian man said. “It is an abomination.”
But many said the worst indignity was being robbed of their few possessions either by soldiers with machine guns or by young civilians carrying knives.
“The most painful thing is this: A lot of people buy things, for more than two years they are gathering their own money to keep their own things that they will take to Nigeria,” the Nigerian man said. “But the little things that you have — like tele, plasma, clothes, shoes, bags, all your assets — they take everything.”
Another man added: “Just imagine: We are poor people, and they are robbing us. They are taking our dinars, our euros, our pounds. They are taking our mobile phones and SIM cards.”
The loss of the cellphones — the Libyan government is confiscating them apparently to prevent the circulation of cellphone pictures of the unrest — means that many of the refugees have been unable to tell their families they are alive, several said.
Many said that after waiting days for people from their embassies to help arrange their travel papers, they had given up hope in their home countries.
“We are somebody and we are from somewhere,” said Abru Razak, 35, a Nigerian with two daughters, 2 and 5, at the airport. “Even when we get into the airport they are beating us and pushing us. We are dying. Tell the United Nations they should get us away from here — to anywhere, just to save our lives.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/08/world/middleeast/08refugees.html?hp=&pagewanted=all
Comments
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We dont have friends we have enemies!
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The lil angel on my shoulder is telling me to feel sorry for them because their treatment is deplorable. The lil devil on my shoulder is saying that's what happens when you're in someone else's country illegally.
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The Lonious Monk wrote: »The lil angel on my shoulder is telling me to feel sorry for them because their treatment is deplorable. The lil devil on my shoulder is saying that's what happens when you're in someone else's country illegally.
You shouldn't have a right to mistreat someone just because they're in your country. -
The Lonious Monk wrote: »The lil angel on my shoulder is telling me to feel sorry for them because their treatment is deplorable. The lil devil on my shoulder is saying that's what happens when you're in someone else's country illegally.
Incredibly stupid argument to make. -
Incredibly stupid argument to make.
I'm not making an argument, and I'm not condoning their mistreatment. What I'm saying is that when you're in a country illegally and some ? pops off, you can't expect much sympathy when you're inconvenienced. They mentioned the chinese and other groups there that got rescued. They got rescued because they were there legally and still had formal ties to their country of origin. These people left their countries illegally. They can't be mad because their countries aren't jumping at the chance to rescue some people that were breaking laws in the first place. If I break into someone's house and then someone else comes and holds everyone including myself hostage, how would I look for getting mad because the cops aren't making it their priority to save me. -
The segment of American blacks who are most antiWhite generally won't admit the truth about Islamic [N.African and MidEast] attitude toward Africans. Historical or present.
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The Lonious Monk wrote: »I'm not making an argument, and I'm not condoning their mistreatment. What I'm saying is that when you're in a country illegally and some ? pops off, you can't expect much sympathy when you're inconvenienced. They mentioned the chinese and other groups there that got rescued. They got rescued because they were there legally and still had formal ties to their country of origin. These people left their countries illegally. They can't be mad because their countries aren't jumping at the chance to rescue some people that were breaking laws in the first place. If I break into someone's house and then someone else comes and holds everyone including myself hostage, how would I look for getting mad because the cops aren't making it their priority to save me.
Even "criminals" have legal rights that cannot be forfeited.
Sympathy isn't given because it's 'deserved', it's given because it's needed. -
John Prewett wrote: »The segment of American blacks who are most antiWhite generally won't admit the truth about Islamic [N.African and MidEast] attitude toward Africans. Historical or present.
^^ This.
American Blacks overlook North African [Arabic] racism towards Sub-Sahara Africans. Makes you wonder, because most American Blacks look like Sub-Saharan Africans.
Yes, N. Africans are biased against Sub-Saharan Africans. -
John Prewett wrote: »The segment of American blacks who are most antiWhite generally won't admit the truth about Islamic [N.African and MidEast] attitude toward Africans. Historical or present.
Yea like NOI, Moors and Moorish. -
IC Retiree wrote: »^^ This.
American Blacks overlook North African [Arabic] racism towards Sub-Sahara Africans. Makes you wonder, because most American Blacks look like Sub-Saharan Africans.
Yes, N. Africans are biased against Sub-Saharan Africans.
Keep it real cuz you real african and arabs. their isnt a such thing as sub saharan n north africans ? -
Very sad situation for these Black Africans in Libya. I hope these people get the help they deserve and need. With all the Black African mercenaries in Libya tearing ? up, it's not gonna be an easy road for them. Just like white folk in Zimbabwe and South Africa after the independence movements.
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black africans in libya? half of Libya is black man.
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John Prewett wrote: »The segment of American blacks who are most antiWhite generally won't admit the truth about Islamic [N.African and MidEast] attitude toward Africans. Historical or present.
i dont really care cuz i know da OG N. Africanz was BLK not arabz... -
Even "criminals" have legal rights that cannot be forfeited.
Sympathy isn't given because it's 'deserved', it's given because it's needed.
You're missing the point. Rights go out the window when chaos ensues. Those people aren't in their position because no one is sympathetic to their plight. They are in that position because they were in a country illegally and had the misfortune of being caught in disastrous internal conflict. Their present predicament is a direct result of the illegal actions they took. Every action has consequences. Yes, it's horrible that they are in the positions they are, but those are the consequences of the actions they had taken.
On the flipside, the fact that it's open season on blacks there due to the actions of those mercs definitely isn't their fault. That part is ? up. -
The Lonious Monk wrote: »You're missing the point. Rights go out the window when chaos ensues. Those people aren't in their position because no one is sympathetic to their plight. They are in that position because they were in a country illegally and had the misfortune of being caught in disastrous internal conflict. Their present predicament is a direct result of the illegal actions they took. Every action has consequences. Yes, it's horrible that they are in the positions they are, but those are the consequences of the actions they had taken.
On the flipside, the fact that it's open season on blacks there due to the actions of those mercs definitely isn't their fault. That part is ? up.
No, I think you are (missing the point), probably because I'm not explaining myself well. Blame is irrelevant. There is no 'putting into context' the harm or victimization of innocent people who are looking for a better life (unless that harm is necessary to prevent even worse harm). Robbing, assaulting, abusing etc. illegal immigrants is morally equivalent to robbing, assaulting, abusing etc. native born citizens or legal immigrants because what's morally relevant is the suffering that these actions cause, not the status of the people who suffer as a result of those actions. -
You're talking about the robbery, assaults abuse, etc... I'm not speaking that specifically. I'm talking about the fact that they are stuck in this self destructing country with no way out. That dilemma is a direct consequence of them being rule breakers. Had they been in the country legally, the very likely would have been evacuated the same way all the other legal immigrants were. I'm not saying that them being beaten, robbed, or exploited because they are illegal aliens is right. What I'm saying is they can't be over there crying about how their countries are abandoning them in these times when they were the ones who abandoned their countries for Libya in the first place. I understand they were looking for a better life, but how can you hop the fence looking for greener pastures and then get mad at the people you left behind because the grass truly isn't greener on the other side?
The fact of the matter is everyone in that country right now is having a rough time. The Libyan rebels fighting for their freedoms are having bombs dropped on their heads. The people who aren't fighting for anything but just trying to live are casualties of those same bombs. These illegal aliens that got caught up in this don't deserve anymore sympathy than the people living there and have no other place to go. -
The Lonious Monk wrote: »You're talking about the robbery, assaults abuse, etc... I'm not speaking that specifically. I'm talking about the fact that they are stuck in this self destructing country with no way out. That dilemma is a direct consequence of them being rule breakers. Had they been in the country legally, the very likely would have been evacuated the same way all the other legal immigrants were. I'm not saying that them being beaten, robbed, or exploited because they are illegal aliens is right. What I'm saying is they can't be over there crying about how their countries are abandoning them in these times when they were the ones who abandoned their countries for Libya in the first place. I understand they were looking for a better life, but how can you hop the fence looking for greener pastures and then get mad at the people you left behind because the grass truly isn't greener on the other side?
-I don't have a rule-oriented view of morality, I have a consequence oriented view of morality (and by 'consequence' I mean the effect that actions have on one's emotional state of mind, causing happiness or suffering). These people entered into Libya illegally because they wanted a better life, the native born people of Libya do not deserve whatever opportunities living in Libya provides them with more than these illegal immigrants do just because they had the good fortune of having been born in Libya ('good fortune' compared to an even poorer country, at least). If these immigrants can break the rules without harming others or depriving them of happiness, then I support them doing so if it will lead to a better standard of living for them. I would say the same if Libyan citizens were entering into Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal etc. illegally.
-The governments of these illegal immigrants (not to mention the Libyan government and select Libyan civilians for perpetrating/allowing these crimes) can be criticized for not making the same effort to evacuate them from Libya that they would if they were legal immigrants because they have a *moral* obligation to care for the needs of their citizens. What matters is not whether or not harm caused or ignored is within "the rules" or who can be blamed but the harm itself. -
i dont get how someone can be called a black african.....
why is it always black european, black american, black latino...and now black african
but whtie people are european, american, south african and austrailian -
i dont get how someone can be called a black african.....
why is it always black european, black american, black latino...and now black african
but whtie people are european, american, south african and austrailian
Good point never thought about that -
i dont get how someone can be called a black african.....
why is it always black european, black american, black latino...and now black african
but whtie people are european, american, south african and austrailian
i dunno but im in europe and when somebody talks bout south africans here they mostly talkin bout black
and latino imo is combined from white to black and native south american
black american is mostly labeled afro american guess thats becos its a minority in the u.s. -
black africans in libya? half of Libya is black man.
From the reports on the conflict I've seen I know that there are black Libyans. But half of Libya is black? Are you sure? Are you from there? How are blacks treated there normally? -
i dont get how someone can be called a black african.....
why is it always black european, black american, black latino...and now black african
but whtie people are european, american, south african and austrailian
What do you think I should have said? Libyans are Africans, and the story I posted is about the black African immigrants there. ''Africans in Libya" would not have been suitably informative. -
-I don't have a rule-oriented view of morality, I have a consequence oriented view of morality (and by 'consequence' I mean the effect that actions have on one's emotional state of mind, causing happiness or suffering). These people entered into Libya illegally because they wanted a better life, the native born people of Libya do not deserve whatever opportunities living in Libya provides them with more than these illegal immigrants do just because they had the good fortune of having been born in Libya ('good fortune' compared to an even poorer country, at least). If these immigrants can break the rules without harming others or depriving them of happiness, then I support them doing so if it will lead to a better standard of living for them. I would say the same if Libyan citizens were entering into Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal etc. illegally.
Yo for real, what kinda nonsense is this. If a person isn't born into a wealthy family, he did nothing to earn the ? that he has, does that mean people have the right to come and take it from him? No, because that's illegal. Yeah, maybe those born in Libya got a better draw in life than some of those immigrants from other countries, but that doesn't mean those immigrants have the right to break Libyan laws. It also doesn't mean they should be absolved of any consequences that may come as a result of thier actions. Look, I understand people will do whatever it takes to survive and provide for their families. That's all well and good. But when you choose to break the law, you are accepting a risk. That's just how it goes. They broke those laws, and now that everything has gone to hell in Libya, the fact that they broke those laws has come back to bite them. You say you are consequence oriented. Well why is it so hard for you to understand and accept that their present predicament is a consequence of their actions. It's and unfortunate consequence, but a consequence nonetheless.-The governments of these illegal immigrants (not to mention the Libyan government and select Libyan civilians for perpetrating/allowing these crimes) can be criticized for not making the same effort to evacuate them from Libya that they would if they were legal immigrants because they have a *moral* obligation to care for the needs of their citizens. What matters is not whether or not harm caused or ignored is within "the rules" or who can be blamed but the harm itself.
What? Why does a government have a moral obligation to spend their money and resources to care for people who willingly left the country. Those people basically put themselve in a self imposed exile. I'm sorry, but a country's money is better spent on those are still inside or at least tied to that country. A country has no moral obligation whatsoever towards people who willingly left it. That was their choice. And once again their choice is what put them in their present situation. -
debatable...black africans in libya? half of Libya is black man.
you've never heard white placed in front of that latter list? especially south african? well, maybe not european...i dont get how someone can be called a black african.....
why is it always black european, black american, black latino...and now black african
but whtie people are european, american, south african and austrailian -
i dont get how someone can be called a black african.....
i guess cuz placez like EGYPT n N. africa cuz da majority of them dont call themselvez blk africanz they call themselvez ARAB africanz & sum of them hate on blk africanz which is fukin krazy...
