in Benin City, the difficult return of migrants repatriated from Libya

Because they left through the same networks, traveled the same roads and encountered the same violence, the stories of migrants from Benin City in southern Nigeria often end up being similar. In this city where evangelical churches rub shoulders with money transfer offices, everyone knows a “returned” (a returnee) having tried the adventure abroad before being sent back to his country.

Edo State has long been considered the main point of departure to Europe for irregular migrants and Nigerian prostitutes. As such, the region has benefited for five years from significant funding from the European Union (EU), which supports reintegration projects and programs for “voluntary returns” managed by the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

Since 2017, some 27,000 migrants have been repatriated to Nigeria with the support of this United Nations agency. Most of them (over 17,600 people) were stuck in Libya or Niger when they were picked up by IOM. A quarter of these returns involved migrants from Edo State. The number of repatriations may have dropped drastically since the Covid-19 pandemic (4,628 in 2019, compared to 816 in 2020), the IOM indicates that it has already rescued more than 500 Nigerians detained in Libya since the beginning of the year, while around 32,000 nationals are still stranded in the country.

Many candidates for departure end up falling into the hands of human traffickers

However, “the attention paid to the Libyan network has prompted traffickers to change their strategy and destinations”, observes Chinenye Okoye, who works for the NGO Idia Renaissance, in Benin City. Migration routes now lead more to the Middle East or the Gulf countries. But as often, there is a lack of data to precisely quantify the phenomenon, especially since the routes are far from linear. During their perilous journey, many candidates for departure end up falling into the hands of human traffickers.

Sequels and contempt

Mercy thought she might make it to Europe “in less than a week” as promised by the Ghanaian smuggler, who sold her to a local notable once they arrived in Libya. The young woman’s ordeal lasted a little over a year, before a Nigerian woman who had lived in the country for fifteen years agreed to organize her escape and put her in contact with the IOM. In 2017, Mercy therefore returned to Nigeria by air, as if she weren’t “never left”she says.

Her mother, who had borrowed nearly 2,000 euros from a microcredit organization to finance her daughter’s trip, was relieved to see her alive again. But that’s not the case for everyone. “Others see you as a mistake, launches Mercy, whose sweet face is framed by long braids. Everyone knows that Nigeria is a bankrupt country, so what’s the point of coming back here? »

In addition to the physical and psychological after-effects, survivors of trafficking and deported migrants suffer the contempt of their relatives, in total discrepancy with their experience. “A lot of people were saying, ‘The girls who went through Libya are all prostitutes, they are no longer suitable for marriage'”, traces Mercy, who has long felt ” incomplete “as “excluded from society”.

“The girls want to leave no matter what, they think everything will be fine for them”

Left to her own devices at first, she was then able to benefit from training from the IOM, which provided her with the necessary equipment to start a small trade in ready meals. But the young woman finally had to liquidate her activity, at the beginning of 2022, to finance the hospitalization of her mother, suffering from liver cancer. “I am the eldest daughter, it was also up to me to pay for her funeral, and today I have to take care of my five brothers and sisters”, she says.

In July, Mercy was able to open a fashion boutique, this time thanks to a loan from an acquaintance. The survivor intervenes with potential candidates for the trip, but her testimony is not always well received: “The girls want to leave no matter what, they think everything will be fine for them and they suspect us of lying. »

Sewing and theater

In Benin City, the EU funds many training programs for “returned” and potential candidates for departure. In the premises of the NGO Genius Hub Global Initiative, dozens of women are busy around sewing machines. Since its opening in 2015, this organization has trained more than 8,000 beneficiaries, who are encouraged to take part in art therapy workshops supposed to help them put their experience into words. “Without it, it is impossible to acquire new skillsunderlines Obehi Okpiabhele, the director of the NGO. Their heads are too full of pain to hold anything back. »

Theater plays, written and performed by the returnees, are also staged in the villages in an attempt to “generate empathy” within communities. But some people remain excluded from these programs, sometimes for lack of information or because they are plagued by shame and depression.

Uwa, 36, pulled herself out of Libyan hell after two years of captivity in the home of an Arab man. The frail young woman with big black eyes had taken to the road after being abandoned by the father of her child, and it is by the same way that she returned to Nigeria. “My ex-husband heard that I had come back and he asked for reconciliation, she remembers. Maybe he thought I had brought back money from my trip, but I had nothing. »

Uwa gave birth to two more children before this man left her again. Since then, she has survived as best she can, thanks to the donations of food from the faithful of her church and the tickets that her pastor’s wife sometimes slips her. Her financial situation is so dramatic that she is struggling to pay the derisory rent for her small room, 3,000 naira per month (7 euros). However, two years ago, Uwa received training in leather work, but it is impossible to continue this activity without capital to invest in the purchase of equipment.

“Back to school started last week and I can’t send my children to school because I can’t afford to pay for their books and notebooks”, she explains, tightening her loincloth around her skinny hips. A few months ago, the young woman gathered her clothes again, ready to go back to Libya. “I couldn’t bear to see my children in this situation anymore.. I just wanted to go somewhere where I would stop thinking. » Uwa ended up abandoning the idea in front of the tears of her offspring. Obtaining a new six-month training course, this time in pastry, also gave her some strength.

While the reintegration of “returned” is seen as a lever to put a stop to irregular immigration to Europe, a report published on October 11 by the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) is alarmed at the conditions under which people in an irregular situation are sent back to their country of origin. “Most of the migrants in Libya return in the same situation that had pushed them to leave, with the additional weight of financial and psychosocial difficulties linked to the failure of their migratory project”, underlines this study. The CDH even considers that many of these returns are not really “volunteers” and that they “then have little chance of being sustainable”.