AA correspondent sheds light on the difficult journey of undocumented migrants from Libya to Europe via Italy.
By Assed Baig

TRIPOLI (AA) – Anadolu Agency (AA) correspondent investigates into migration and smuggling in Libya by traveling 640 km south of the capital Tripoli to Sabha, the largest city in the south.

Migrants from across Africa make their way from country to country, finally entering Libya. Here they try to reach Sabha, where they can either find work or locate smugglers that can take them to Tripoli.

Mukhtar, a 30-year-old local of Sabha who did not want to give his last name, smuggled migrants to Tripoli for eight years. He knows the routes and the process well, but now says that he has stopped.

He is a big man with a dark complexion, sports a short beard and has a very firm handshake. He stops occasionally to scribble in his notebook.

“Human smuggling is unethical and immoral, I don’t want to do it anymore,” he says.

Southern Libya is marred by lack of security and I was advised upon my arrival not to go out after dark.

Traveling outside of Sabha is even more difficult and we have to be especially careful when trying to visit the stations where migrants are dropped off in order to find local smugglers to take them to Tripoli.

Mukhtar tells me about the poor security situation. He has an AK-47 automatic rifle in the corner of the room. He sees that my eyes have fallen upon it, and suddenly stops mid conversation, walks over picks it up and heads straight for the door. He fires a round into the air whilst standing in the doorway. With a big smile on his face he looks at me and says, “Mia bi mia,” a common phrase used in Libya roughly translated as ‘100 out of 100.’

He tells me that he has to be armed. “It’s my security,” he says.

“I sometimes used to pick the migrants up from Qatrun, a village 300km south of Sabha on the main road to Chad and Niger.

“But the majority of the time I took them from Sabha,” he tells me as he lights up a cigarette.

He says he used to charge migrants 350 dinars (roughly $300) to take them to Tripoli. He took ten people at a time and did about ten journeys a month, making $3,000 a month.

He says he sometimes smuggled cigarettes and on rare occasions weapons.

“I was caught once with migrants in my car and they kept me for three months, they beat me badly, but I didn’t speak. After that they let me go, and I carried on smuggling,” he says. Another time he was caught with tobacco and was let out after a week.

Mukhtar tells me that they used expensive houses in affluent areas to hide migrants in between smuggling runs. This way, they were less likely to get caught, rather than keeping migrants in run-down derelict buildings.

Mukhtar was a smuggler during Gaddafi’s rule and he says that they drove throughout the night to get to Tripoli avoiding checkpoints.

“We drove with our headlights off,” he recalls.

“I was good at what I did, I knew the route,” almost boasting as he explained the details to me.

Mukhtar dubs the people-smuggling gangs as ‘mafia’ indicating their wealth and organizational capabilities. When I ask him about smuggling to Italy he simply says, “That’s a different mafia that deals with that, it is not us.”

Mukhtar was known as a seasoned smuggler and has a reputation as a strong man. He left his previous life and now runs a successful business making bricks.

After speaking to Mukhtar I head to a location where I am to meet a smuggler who still operates. I am told to wait in a room before he comes in.

A well built young man shakes my hand and then pulls out a handgun that is tucked into his jeans. He hands it to his friend before sitting down. Everyone carries guns here, especially smugglers. They can sometimes be the targets of other criminals because of the handsome money they make.

“There was no work for me so I started smuggling. It was difficult at first but it then became easy for me,” says the 22-year-old man who goes by the name “Akbar”.

He joined a group, or a ‘mafia’, when he first started smuggling. The first time he smuggled migrants to Tripoli he went with a friend, but after that he transported them on his own. He started smuggling people when he was 19.

“The first time I smuggled I was slightly fearful and afraid. ‘What happens if I have an accident or am caught by police?’ he voices. But after the first time my confidence grew and now I take it easy,” he says sitting crossed-leg on the floor.

Akbar used to study economics at university but dropped out because of poor family finances. He sometimes just acts as a broker passing people on to other smugglers and making a commission of 20 to 30 dinars ($20) on top. He only does this when he does not want to drive the migrants to Tripoli himself. As a ‘people dealer’ he can make $800 a month, much less than he earns when he does the job on his own.

“I switch the lights off and just drive through the desert. I don’t stop, it’s a 9-10 hour journey,” he says.

I ask what happens if a migrant falls off the back of the pickup truck. He laughs and says, “You just keep going.”

This is a common story. Migrants are often left in the desert to die if they fall off the trucks. The most hazardous journey is from Niger to Libya. Migrants often tie themselves with rope to the top of big trucks carrying other cargo. I am told that the Toubou militia are the ones that transport migrants into Libya on big cargo trucks.

The Toubou are an indigenous black people native to Libya. They were persecuted under Gaddafi and denied citizenship.

Migrants are picked up from the Al Manshia district of Sabha city by smugglers taking them to Tripoli.

“I smuggle men, women and children,” Akbar tells me whilst lighting up another cigarette.

I ask him if he feels sorry for the migrants.

He smiles, “I don’t feel sorry, this is my work.”

It is easier to smuggle now then it was under Gaddafi. However, the road is unsafe for everyone; there are militias and gangs of criminals that rob people along the route. Akbar, too, carries an AK-47 rifle with him when he is smuggling.

I ask him if he will ever leave this work, whether he will settle down and get married. He tells me that he is not even thinking about marriage at the moment as he is too busy working. Smuggling is not exactly a career you can boast about to your prospective wife or parents-in-law.

Akbar won’t let me take a picture of his face; he lets me take a picture of the back of his head. There is still a fear that the government may begin to clamp down on smugglers should law and order be implemented in the country.

Akbar needs another job before he will give up on people smuggling but there are no such prospects in the foreseeable future.

Read the original article published in Anadolu Agency on 7 December 2013 

When Malala Yusufzai was shot in the head by Taliban gunmen simply because she wanted to gain an education it sent shockwaves around the world.

Straight away the Western media took up the issue. Western politicians spoke out and soon she found herself in the UK. The way in which the West reacted did make me question the reasons and motives behind why Malala’s case was taken up and not so many others.

There is no justifying the brutal actions of the Taliban or the denial of the universal right to education, however there is a deeper more historic narrative that is taking place here.

This is a story of a native girl being saved by the white man. Flown to the UK, the Western world can feel good about itself as they save the native woman from the savage men of her home nation. It is a historic racist narrative that has been institutionalised. Journalists and politicians were falling over themselves to report and comment on the case. The story of an innocent brown child that was shot by savages for demanding an education and along comes the knight in shining armour to save her.

The actions of the West, the bombings, the occupations the wars all seem justified now, “see, we told you, this is why we intervene to save the natives.”

The truth is that there are hundreds and thousands of other Malalas. They come from Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and other places in the world. Many are victims of the West, but we conveniently forget about those as Western journalists and politicians fall over themselves to appease their white-middle class guilt also known as the white man’s burden.

Gordon Brown stood at the UN and spoke words in support for Malala, yet he is the very same Gordon Brown that voted for the war in Iraq that not only robbed people of their education but of their lives. The same journalists that failed to question or report on the Western wars in an intelligible manner now sing the praises of the West as they back Malala and her campaign without putting it in context of the war in Afghanistan and the destabalisation of the region thanks to the Western occupation of Afghanistan.

Malala’s message is true, it is profound, it is something the world needs to take note of; education is a right of every child, but Malala has been used as a tool by the West. It allows countries like Britain to hide their sins in Afghanistan and Iraq. It allows journalists to report a feel good story whilst they neglect so many others, like the American drone strikes that terrorise men, women and children in Pakistan’s border regions.

The current narrative continues the demonization of the non-white Muslim man. Painting him as a savage, someone beyond negotiating with, beyond engaging with, the only way to deal with this kind of savage is to wage war, occupy and use drones against them. NATO is bombing to save girls like Malala is the message here.

Historically the West has always used women to justify the actions of war mongering men. It is in the imagery, it is in art, in education, it is even prevalent in Western human rights organisations, Amnesty International’s poster campaign coinciding with the NATO summit in New York encouraged NATO to ‘keep the progress going!’ in Afghanistan.

Shazia Ramzan and Kainat Riaz were also shot along with Malala, the media and politicians seem to have forgotten about them. Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi – how many of the Western politicians and journalists know about this name? She was the 14-year-old girl gang raped by five US soldiers, then her and her family, including her six-year-old sister were murdered. There are no days named after her, no mentions of her at the UN, and we don’t see Gordon Brown pledging his name to her cause.

I support Malala, I support the right to education for all, I just cannot stand the hypocrisy of Western politicians and media as they pick and choose, congratulating themselves for something that they have caused. Malala is the good native, she does not criticise the West, she does not talk about the drone strikes, she is the perfect candidate for the white man to relieve his burden and save the native.

The Western savior complex has hijacked Malala’s message. The West has killed more girls than the Taliban have. The West has denied more girls an education via their missiles than the Taliban has by their bullets. The West has done more against education around the world than extremists could ever dream of. So, please, spare us the self-righteous and self-congratulatory message that is nothing more than propaganda that tells us that the West drops bombs to save girls like Malala.

Police are treating a blast near a mosque in Tipton, West Midlands, as a terrorist incident.

The blast near the Kanz-ul-Iman took place around 1:00 pm and police are currently at the scene.

Residents reported finding debris in their gardens including nails.

One resident, wishing not to be named said, “My house is about 40 yards away from the mosque.”

“I saw the cloud of smoke after the extremely loud bang.”

“The backdoor to the living room was open when the explosion happened, a nail landed inside our living room.”

The Friday prayers at the mosque were moved back because of the Muslim holy month of Ramadhan, where Muslims refrain from food and water during daylight hours.  The mosque would have been full during Friday prayers but people had not begun to arrive at the time of the blast.

Asked if they saw anything suspicious leading up to the explosion the resident told me “ I saw three young white men in their mid 20’s walking away from the mosque.”

“They were well kept, were wearing sunglasses and shorts, they looked suspicious because they were peering into the houses as they walked past”

“They just looked out of place.” She added

Local councillor, Richard Johnson said on his twitter, “Thankfully no-one was hurt in suspected ‪Tipton nail bomb blast near mosque.

The explosion is reported to have taken place in the Mosque car park.  Surrounding roads remain closed off in what police say is a ‘precautionary measure’.  Some residents have also been evacuated from their homes as police forensic teams are on the scene investigating the incident.

Police spokesman Gareth Cann, told media that the Police have called in the army to make sure the area is safe adding “this is possibly an act of terrorism.” He cited a number of factors, including the explosion, location and the fact that police discovered debris in the surrounding area.

Abu Nusaybah is still in custody but has not been charged.  Parts of the letter have been redacted to prevent contempt of court.