• About Us
  • Who Are We
  • Work With Us
Monday, July 14, 2025
No Result
View All Result
The Globe Post
39 °f
New York
44 ° Fri
46 ° Sat
40 ° Sun
41 ° Mon
No Result
View All Result
The Globe Post
No Result
View All Result
Home Featured

From Sudan to Libya, Nightmare For Migrants Continues

Staff Writer by Staff Writer
04/25/19
in Featured, Refugees, World
People in South Sudan

Photo: AFP

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Sudanese migrants who fled fighting and turmoil in Darfur are facing war once again, caught for three weeks in the crossfire as Libyan unity government forces battle strongman Khalifa Haftar.

After often brutal journeys, they have been forced to take refuge at a school in the center of Tripoli which was shuttered by authorities last week as fighting near the capital peaked.

In the building’s multi-colored corridors, children laugh and race past classrooms where chairs and desks have been pushed aside to make way for mattresses.

Laundry dries in the yard under the sun as adults huddle in the shade.

“I fled one war only to find another war,” sighed Alawia, a mother in her forties.

The Sudanese woman from Darfur was living in Saadia southwest of Tripoli with her three children when the clashes erupted.

“At first, we thought the fighting would stop after two or three days, then the planes started dropping bombs,” she said.

“I took my children and left without knowing where to go.”


A Painful Odyssey 

The U.N. says fighting in Tripoli’s southern suburbs has displaced at least 35,000 people since Haftar’s forces on April 4 launched their bid for the capital, seat of the internationally recognized Government of National Accord.

They include some 100 people mostly from Darfur that have taken shelter at the Ahmad Ibn Chatwan school, with help from the Libyan Red Crescent.

Today, we relocated some 325 refugees & migrants with @IOM_Libya from Qaser Ben Gasheer detention centre to Azzawya – out of harm and now safe after being trapped in clashes for days @Refugees pic.twitter.com/tGJG7ZvlPD

— UNHCR Libya (@UNHCRLibya) April 24, 2019

“We are feeling some safety. We heard news that the fighting continues but we get the smile of life here. There’s water and food,” said 38-year-old Abdelrassoul, speaking in English, his voice quivering.

For him, like many others at the makeshift shelter, the school is the umpteenth stop of a painful odyssey.

Tears roll down his cheeks as he recalls his “totally destroyed” village in Darfur where his family was killed in 2003, the refugee camp he was forced to move to, and the arduous journey north to Egypt and then Libya a few years later.

The brutal conflict in his home region claimed some 300,000 lives and saw the government accused of war crimes as it battled ethnic minority rebels.

Abdelrassoul said he was kidnapped three times in Libya before arriving to Tripoli in September with plans “to cross the sea to Europe.”

“And suddenly, the war broke out.”

A week into the fighting, he fled with his wife, two young daughters and a number of other families including pregnant women and small children.

They walked for hours, following directions from locals towards field stations run by the Libyan Red Crescent.

As front lines shifted they kept moving, from the suburbs of Gasr ben Ghachir and Ain Zara to two different schools in Tripoli.

“Every time we arrived somewhere, the war followed us,” he said.


‘I’m Ready to Sell One of My Organs’

Most migrants in Libya share the same goal – Europe – hoping their perilous journeys will not have been in vain.

Visibly exhausted, one man said he was detained by a non-Libyan armed group in the desert on his way towards the capital.

“They raped my wife … she is two months pregnant and I don’t know if it’s my child or not,” he said.

Standing not far from him, 26-year-old Jihan Hussein arrived to Tripoli some seven months ago after a dangerous trip through the desert with her husband and two children.

“We suffered on the road… we’ve suffered here,” she said, her face framed by a striped black-and-white veil.

She says that after they arrived in the capital a man approached her husband and asked if he was looking for work.

“He took him and since then we’ve had no news.”

She has sought shelter in the skeletons of destroyed buildings, living a life on the streets where she says she’s been raped.

“We’re tired,” she sighed.

“I have no money … I’m ready to sell one of my organs. If I have to sell a kidney I’ll do it and I’ll take the journey by sea to Europe. We have no choice.”


More on the Subject 

Will Sudan’s Transition Succeed? Lessons from the Middle East and North Africa

ShareTweet
Staff Writer

Staff Writer

AFP with The Globe Post

Related Posts

Migrants waiting at the Turkish border.
Opinion

Beyond Numbers: Confronting Europe’s Broken Border System

by Eleanor Paynter
May 30, 2023
Russian passports
World

EU Won’t Recognize Russian Passports From Occupied Ukraine

by Staff Writer
November 10, 2022
Mario Draghi
Business

EU Leaders Clash Over How to Tackle Energy Prices

by Staff Writer
October 20, 2022
Olaf Scholz
Business

Germany Defends Massive Energy Plan Against EU Critics

by Staff Writer
October 4, 2022
Members of the Muslim Uyghurs minority demonstrate
World

EU to Ban Products Made Using Forced Labor, Risking China Anger

by Staff Writer
September 14, 2022
Eurozone
Business

Eurozone Stocks Sink as Inflation Accelerates to Record High

by Staff Writer
May 31, 2022
Next Post
Migrants wait to be rescued by the Aquarius rescue ship at Mediterranean Sea

Kidnapping Migrants at the Mediterranean: How Rescue Becomes Capture

Rohingya refugees

Gangs Taking Control of Bangladesh Rohingya Camps, Report Warns

Recommended

Ursula von der Leyen

EU Ministers Weigh Response to Latest Trump Tariff Threat

July 14, 2025
UN rapporteur Francesca Albanese

UN Says US Sanctions on Expert Sets ‘Dangerous Precedent,’ Must Be Reversed

July 11, 2025
Women in Afghanistan wearing a blue burqa

ICC Seeks Arrest of Taliban Leaders Over Persecution of Women

July 9, 2025
Kenya, Nairobi, 2024-07-16. Protesters in the streets

Nairobi Tense as Kenya Marks Democracy Uprising

July 7, 2025
President Donald Trump

Trump Wins ‘Phenomenal’ Victory as Congress Passes Flagship Bill

July 4, 2025
University students march in protest towards the Istanbul Municipality in Sarachane as they demonstrate against the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu in Istanbul, Turkey, on March 21, 2025.

‘Remember Charlie Hebdo!’ Protesters Seethe at Istanbul Magazine

July 2, 2025

Opinion

Donald Trump

Fact vs. Fiction: The Trump Administration’s Dubious War on Reverse Discrimination

June 18, 2025
Tens of thousands of protestors shut down Fifth Avenue in Manhattan on Saturday, April 5, 2025, protesting the Trump administration's abuse of the separation of federal powers as well as the deep cuts to governmental services overseen by presidential advisor Elon Musk.

Civil Society Is Holding the Line. Will Washington Notice?

June 17, 2025
A Black Lives Matter mural in New York City.

Fuhgeddaboudit! America’s Erasure of History

April 2, 2025
Bust of Deputy Rubens Paiva in the Chamber of Deputies

Democratic Brazilians Are Still Here

March 18, 2025
A woman from Guatemala

Dispatch From Central America

January 28, 2025
US President Donald Trump

Dear Trump Supporters: Is This the America You Wanted?

January 28, 2025
Facebook Twitter

Newsletter

Do you like our reporting?
SUBSCRIBE

About Us

The Globe Post

The Globe Post is part of Globe Post Media, a U.S. digital news organization that is publishing the world's best targeted news sites.

submit oped

© 2018 The Globe Post

No Result
View All Result
  • National
  • World
  • Business
  • Interviews
  • Lifestyle
  • Democracy at Risk
    • Media Freedom
  • Opinion
    • Editorials
    • Columns
    • Book Reviews
    • Stage
  • Submit Op-ed

© 2018 The Globe Post