How European Union xenophobia kills Africans

This video says about itself:

The EU Silently Welcomes Slavery In Libya

1 December 2017

The European Union was awarded the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize “for over six decades [having] contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe.”

At the same time, EU officials know that once refugees can’t make it to Europe—whether because they become enslaved in Libya or are too fearful to make the trip—they are no longer a problem for the Union.

Translated from Bram Vermeulen, Dutch NOS TV correspondent in Africa:

“You must forgive me”, words to never forget

Today, 09:36

The story of 2017 that stays with me the most was told to us on the floor of one of the ghettos in the caravan city of Agadez in Niger.

Thermo Amadou from Guinea and Diallo Mamdou Djulde told about the day when the Toyota Hilux left them and 23 others in the vast desert near the border between Niger and Libya. The driver had deviated from the route that smugglers have been using for decades between Agadez and the Libyan border.

On that route, since the beginning of the year, there are roadblocks and policemen trained by the European agency Eucap, which settled in Agadez to stop the migration to Europe. The consequence of this pressure from Brussels is that the smugglers now prefer the unpaved roads through the Sahara.

The driver of Amadou and his travel companion after a day of driving lacked petrol. In order to refuel he would drive back to the official route, but with 25 migrants in the trunk, he would certainly be arrested. So you wait here, he said. “I’ll be right back.”

Most of them got out of the trunk. Thermo Amadou remained seated. Until Pappi, the muscular Congolese persuaded him to trust the driver. “Otherwise we will all die here.” The driver never came back. They waited for him a full day.

Then they started walking. With two jerry cans containing 5 liters of water, connected to a rope that he had wrapped around his neck. Back to Agadez. Following the tracks of the Toyota Hilux. On the seventh day the Senegalese Pap Djah gave up. “Leave me behind here”, he begged the others. They had already carried him forward on his shoulders for a day. “Il faut me pardonner”, he said. “You must forgive me.”

Thermo Amadou had never forgotten those words. “Il faut me pardonner”. He sat on a stone in Agadez’s ghetto, and Diallo sat next to him with hollow eyes. They were crying. They walked nine days to tell this story. Two others did not survive the journey on foot. They buried them in the Sahara sand.

While I listened to their story together with colleague and cameraman Sven Torfinn, I told myself to never forget those words of the Senegalese Pap Djah. Every time migration from Africa to Europe is discussed again by policymakers, angry tweeps, and opinion makers at the talk show tables far from Agadez. Those apologetic words from the Senegalese minutes before his death. “Il faut me pardonner”.

Migrants dying in Algerian desert: here.