Bodies of Africans Wash Up on Libya’s and Tunisia’s Shores

MAMFE, Cameroon—One Saturday morning in March 2021, 17-year-old Beatrice* and 19-year-old Patience* stepped out of a single-room apartment they shared to buy food near the Adagom refugee settlement in Nigeria’s southeastern Cross River State.

That’s when a young man they knew as “Mr. Patrick” approached them.

He asked the teenagers if they were interested in moving to the United States to work as caregivers for a monthly salary.

The two wasted no time in accepting the offer, which came with the condition that they would have to work in a bar in Cameroon, their home country, for at least a year to earn enough to make the journey.

“We immediately began to pack our bags and, after two days, we left for Cameroon,” Beatrice, now 19, said. “We were excited to hear that our stay in Cameroon was temporary and, after a year, we would be traveling to America.”

A little over three years ago, both women, who used to live close to each other, fled their homes in the southwestern Cameroonian town of Akwaya after soldiers stormed their compounds and began to burn houses as the war between English-speaking separatists and government forces in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions intensified. After spending days struggling through thick forests and grasslands, they arrived in Nigeria in November 2019, quickly seeking refuge in the Adagom refugee settlement, where about 5,000 Cameroonians now live. The site is on the outskirts of Ogoja town in Nigeria’s southeastern Cross River State.

For the two days this reporter spoke with the petite women, they were dressed in the same outfit: Blue jean trousers and faded t-shirts. They also appeared emaciated.

According to sources this reporter interviewed, trafficking of adults and children has become rampant as a war rages in Cameroon between the Francophone government and Anglophone forces.

‘We Just Had to Leave’

Both women fled Cameroon on their own, leaving behind relatives, some of whom later fled to Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps in Cameroon’s southwest and to other refugee settlements in southeastern Nigeria.

An Emergency Food Security Assessment that the United Nations conducted a year ago found more than 80 percent of Cameroonian households in refugee settlements and those in host communities are “severely or moderately food insecure.” Three in four refugees may be engaging in child labor and survival sex, according to the UN.

Beatrice and Patience, who spent three years at Adagom on a $2-per-day allowance they earned, jumped at the chance of paid jobs in Cameroon and an eventual trip to the United States.

“At Adagom, we only earned money during planting and harvesting seasons and, once these seasons are over, we go back to begging for survival,” Beatrice said. “When we heard there was something better waiting for us outside Nigeria, we just had to leave.”

Beatrice and Patience had no time to tell anyone they were going.

They arrived in the southwestern Cameroonian town of Mamfe alongside Mr. Patrick, who drove them in his red Volkswagen Passat car. That is when the women said they met a couple of other girls from the same refugee settlement in Nigeria at a bar where they quickly began to work as waiters. Later, they labored as cooks when a restaurant was added to the bar, which was run by three young men, including Mr. Patrick himself, according to the women.

“Behind the bar is a three-bedroom apartment, where everyone who worked there lived,” Patience said. “At some point it was only us (Beatrice and Patience), who remained as workers at the bar. The other two girls we met there were taken away from the apartment one morning.”

Less than a week after they arrived, each of the three men began to make advances at them, demanding sex and threatening to lie to Cameroonian authorities that the teenagers worked for the Ambazonia Defense Forces (ADF) one of the two biggest  armed English-speaking separatist groups.

“They said if we didn’t do what they asked us to do, they’d make our lives miserable,” Patience said. “We had to choose between doing what they wanted or having our lives turned upside down.”

Fearing that they could lose everything that was offered to them and even end up in jail, they gave in. Within weeks, the teenagers were pregnant. But after they gave birth to two boys in February, the traffickers took away their babies. They told the women that they needed to prepare for their trip to the United States and that U.S. authorities wouldn’t admit them if they went with children.

But the trip never happened. Instead, the bar closed in April and its owners fled with the babies.

“They sent us to the market one afternoon to buy baby toiletries and when we returned, we found that both the bar and our apartment had been locked,” Patience said. “The men had left with our children.”

Not having anywhere to stay, a Mamfe trader whom Beatrice and Patience often bought baby toiletries from took both of them into her home, where they remain for now.

‘No Mother Can Rest Until She Finds Her Child’

The women have solicited help from local activists and a Nigerian NGO to find their babies.

“We reported the incident to the police in Mamfe but haven’t heard anything positive from them since then,” Beatrice said. “We also informed [local] pastors and human rights activists, and they’ve been going ‘round the [southwest] area, asking people if they know anything about the men who took the children.”

A senior police officer, who was unauthorized to speak on the matter, told Toward Freedom human trafficking is growing in the city and traffickers are hard to track.

“They receive protection from armed groups,” the officer said. These groups control certain areas in the southwest. “[The police] isn’t equipped enough to engage these elements.”

In Nigeria’s Cross River State, from where Beatrice and Patience were trafficked, authorities explained policing in Adagom is difficult because of its distance from the state’s capital, Calabar, about 304 kilometers (188 miles) south of Adagom.

“Things can only change if funding improves,” said Godwin Eyake, who heads the Cross River State command of Nigeria’s National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP).

A local NGO is helping Beatrice and Patience find their sons by visiting orphanages and writing advertisements.

“It’s hard when you are not sure where the babies were taken to,” said Salome Gambo, a researcher at human-rights group Caprecon Development and Peace Initiative. “We are doing what we are doing just in case it happened that the children were trafficked to Nigeria.”

Gambo admitted recovering the children will be difficult.

However, for the mothers of the babies, there’ll be no stop in their search.

“We will not rest until we find our children,” Patience said. “No mother can rest until she finds her child.”

*Names have been changed

Philip Obaji, Jr., is a journalist based in Nigeria. He won the Future Awards Africa Prize in Education in 2014, and the Future Awards Africa Prize for Young Person of the Year in 2015. Follow him on Twitter at @PhilipObaji.

Editor’s Note: This panel discussion was produced by the African Peoples’ Forum.

Sean Blackmon, activist, organizer and broadcaster, currently serving as co-host of Radio Sputnik’s “By Any Means Necessary”; Jacqueline Luqman, Black Alliance for Peace Mid-Atlantic Region Co-Coordinator, co-host of Radio Sputnik’s “By Any Means Necessary” and host of “Luqman Nation” on the Black Power Media YouTube channel; Kamau Franklin, former practicing attorney, first program director of New York City Police-Watch and co-founder of Black Power Media; and Karanja Gaçuça, a U.S.-based Kenyan journalist, publisher of thebriefscoop.com and executive editor of panafricmedia.org; discussed the power of story at the first-ever African Peoples’ Forum. The event was held December 11 at the Eritrean Civic & Cultural Center in Washington, D.C. Journalist Hermela Aregawi and activist Yolian Ogbu moderated.

The first and second panels can be viewed here and here.

TF editor Julie Varughese reported on this event being held to counter the Biden administration’s U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit.

Editor’s Note: The following represents the writer’s analysis.

Thousands of demonstrators took to Mali’s streets on January 14 to demonstrate against sanctions the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) imposed on the country after the military government’s supposed delay in the transitional map (plan) to transfer power to civilians. The military junta called for mobilizations throughout the country. Protests took place in the capital, Bamako. Other cities in the West African country also witnessed demonstrations, the most notable ones being in Timbuktu in the north and Bougouni in the south.

The former transitional president, Bah Andau, called on his compatriots to defend the homeland.

What is the general context in which these popular demonstrations took place? What are the positions of the actors in the crisis? How did international actors react, including France and Russia? And how is their position a reflection of the Malian authorities and the demonstrations?

Election Day Canceled

The beginning of the latest crisis started at the national conference—organized by the transitional government on January 2—which concluded its work in Bamako by adopting a recommendation to extend the political transition map for a period ranging from six months to five years.

The transitional government, led by President Asimie Goïta (also spelled Guetta), had approved an 18-month timetable, from the military coup carried out in August 2020 to elections that are supposed to be held this month.

Then the transitional government retracted that map, claiming the transitional phase needed to be elongated because the country had suffered from terrorist attacks that coincided with the coronavirus pandemic.

The ruling military council justified this change by saying it was unable to meet this month’s deadline, pointing to the continuing instability due to violence, in addition to the need to implement reforms, including that of the constitution. The hope was protests would not take off around the election, as had happened with previous elections.

At the huge protests in Mali, lots of protesters are waving Russian flags and holding posters that say "Mali-Russia cooperation" and "Thank you China and Russia for your support of Mali".

There are also lots of protesters carrying posters that say "Death to France and allies". pic.twitter.com/YPhaP5d0ZA

— Turtle (@swimming_free) January 17, 2022

Unprecedented Cruelty of ECOWAS Sanctions

After the recommendation to elongate the transitional period was issued and submitted to ECOWAS, it decided to hold a double special session of the Conference of the Heads of the West African Economic and Monetary Union. That is where ECOWAS imposed a set of sanctions on January 9, which included:

1. closing the borders of ECOWAS member states with Mali, 
2. imposing a ban on trade (not including the trade of basic materials),
3. imposing a ban on financial dealings with Mali,
4. freezing Mali’s assets in West African banks, and
5. summoning the ambassadors of member states to Bamako.

ECOWAS said the junta’s proposal to hold presidential elections in 2026 is “totally unacceptable” because it “means that an illegitimate transitional military government will hold the Malian people hostage over the next five years.” ECOWAS will only lift sanctions gradually, when Malian authorities present an “acceptable” timetable and when satisfactory progress is observed in its implementation.

These sanctions are more stringent than those imposed after the first coup in August 2020, which prompted observers to accuse the regional organization of unfairly applying economic and political sanctions for goals linked to foreign interests, France in particular. This is pertinent because ECOWAS did not impose the same sanctions on another West African country, Guinea, which witnessed a coup in September. 

The strong French influence within the corridors of ECOWAS affects the independence of the organization’s decisionmaking. France colonized large portions of West Africa from the 1800s onward. Although West Africa gained independence and was split into sovereign states in the 20th century, France keeps a military presence in the Sahel region of West Africa and mandates many French-speaking African countries use the French currency, the franc, for transactions. 

These sanctions would seriously affect the Malian economy, which is among the poorest in the world and has been experiencing a crisis stemming from terrorism and the pandemic. This is especially because the Republic of Mali is landlocked and depends on Senegal and the Ivory Coast to engage in trade. Consequently, these sanctions constitute a tremendous political and economic pressure on the country, exacerbating its worsening problems. 

The Transitional Government Reacts

The government in Mali chose two parallel courses.

First, they rejected the sanctions and escalation in a strongly worded statement and recalled its ambassadors from ECOWAS countries, closed its land and air borders with them, and stated it would reserve the right to review its participation within ECOWAS bodies. The ECOWAS stated it did not take the situation in Mali into consideration before imposing sanctions, which Mali considered illegal, and not based on any legal basis regulating the work of the group. The sanctions also contradict ECOWAS’ objectives as an African regional organization aimed at achieving solidarity, and Mali expressed regret that the regional organization had become an “instrument in the hand of forces from outside the region have hidden plans,” an unmistakable reference to France.

Despite the harsh tone, Mali declared the door for dialogue is still open to reach a solution to the aggravating crisis.

The second trend has been to mobilize the street, which is rising in anger at France and its suspicious role in Mali, as well as at ECOWAS and its sanctions that disturb Malians’ lives. Surprisingly, these demonstrations denounced the French presence, and saw the French occupation as grounds for terrorist practices. Protesters declared in their slogans their support for Russia’s directions in support of their country’s cause. During the action, the demonstrators carried posters in which they thanked Russia and its efforts in Mali.

It is no secret the agenda that appeared in the rallies and popular demonstrations is the same as the agenda carried by the Goïta government, which no longer desires the support of the French colonizer. Rather, the government has accused France on more than one occasion of being a major supporter of terrorism in Mali, and therefore saw in the Russian presence a hope and a means that could be relied upon to get the country out of the security quagmire and reduce or end the suspicious French role.

It may be true these demonstrations came out in response to the call of the military, and that they protested against the despised French colonial presence, as well as denounced the penalties of ECOWAS. But it should not be taken for granted that their emergence lends a kind of legitimacy to the double military coup, as well as offers approval and acceptance of the five-year transitional map.

It is undoubtedly a long transitional period, at the end of which may only see an extended military rule, or a false civilian rule that covers for the military rule that holds the wheel of government.

These demonstrations ignited a wave of anger against French colonialism, as the Malian and general African community demonstrated in front of the Malian embassy in Paris, in support of the Malian government’s decision to reject the ECOWAS decisions. January 22 was dedicated to organize demonstrations in front of the French embassies throughout the world.

The World Reacts

The Malian military’s agenda, which the popular demonstrations supported, met with multiple international reactions. For example, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said France and the Europeans, who are militarily involved in the fight against militants in the region, want to stay in Mali without any conditions.

The French Ambassador to the United Nations, Nicolas de Rivière, affirmed Paris’ full support for ECOWAS’ sanctions because Malian authorities did not respect ECOWAS demands and obligations in terms of a speedy return to the democratic process.

French anger in this context is understandable. It saw the Malian demonstrations and a hostile military that France did not expect and did not want. France fought against such a change in power for decades by passing whoever it deemed to be at its mercy into power, while suppressing and oppressing peoples with a tyrannical, dictatorial rule that hardly allows their voices to be heard.

However, Mali expelled the French ambassador on January 31, giving them 72 hours to leave the country.

As for Russia, it demanded an understanding of the position of the Malian authorities. The Assistant Russian Ambassador to the United Nations, Dmitry Polyansky, called during a meeting of the UN Security Council devoted to West Africa and the Sahel region, to show the necessary respect for the Republic of Mali and its efforts aimed at restoring order in the country, calling for an understanding of the difficulties they face. Without the return of the state’s authority to many regions of the country, it will not be possible to take into account the credibility of the election results, according to Russia.

The Russian position, consistent with the vision of the military government in Mali, rebuffs the Western presence that has begun to recede from Mali. It is a prelude to the expected Russian presence, whether in the form of security companies (Wagner) or direct support by Russian military forces.

These popular demonstrations may constitute the beginning of a real departure for the French colonialist and a decline in its role in West Africa. It may form the nucleus of a popular legitimacy that would constitute a lever for stable rule in the coming days.

Kribsoo Diallo is a Cairo-based Pan-Africanist researcher in political science related to African affairs. He has written for many African magazines and newspapers. Diallo has contributed to translated editions of papers and articles in Arabic and English for several research centers within the African continent.