Beaten, killed and sold as slaves in Libya. The images which Minniti pretends not to see

Meltingpot.org – A video testimony shot on 14 January 2017 in Libya, in Grigarage, one of the most dangerous neighbourhoods of Tripolis. “All Libyans have a house in which there are black people. Since you have been paid for, you have been bought, you are obliged to give in to them, you always have a weapon held against you”, explains the witness who shot the video and asked us to publish these images. “I promised my friends that if I entered Europe, I would make public the events of January 14th, a date which will remain in our memory.”

(Translation by Arianna Dell’Orio; edited by Ludovica Alberti)

Good morning ladies and gentlemen,

This is a video from Libya, from when I was in Libya. It is not a fake video.

On 14 January 2017, at 1pm, in Grigarage – everyone who passed through Libya knows the neighbourhood, Grigarage, it was the black people’s neighbourhood – Libyans arrived to let the black people out, to arrest us, on 14 January. To put us in prison, to sell us as slaves, in this world in which black people have no power at all.

I promised my friends that if I entered Europe, I would make public the events of January 14th, a date which will remain in our memories. And I am doing that with this video you are seeing…I am in it too…we had not done anything, we had simply immigrated to Libya to try and cross the Mediterranean.

The Libyans came to get us and put us in prison in order to sell us to their Arab brothers. The soldiers were beating us. Can you see? Look up there, there is an armed solider and inside the house there is another one who forces us to leave, beating us.

All of this in order to sell us to their brothers, to force us to work in the desert or in the rest of Libya…in all of Libya’s cities: Beni Ulid, Tripoli, Misurata, Sabrata, Tagiura, Grapoli.

I ask the international community, the European Union, the African Union, the Italian State, to have mercy for black people, to have mercy for us black people coming to Italy…to have mercy with us, to concede us papers…because we suffered too much in Libya.

All Libyans have a house in which there are black people. Since you have been paid for, you have been bought, you are obliged to give in to them, you always have a weapon held against you.

I was in the other camp, called “Saba shirine”. The Libyans always came to us to make us work in the dwells…and one day they came to get us, to make us work at the wells. We refused. And they killed three people.

And when we were in prison, the Arabs came to buy us.
I want that the international community, the European Union, that Italy knows that in the desert, in the Libyan villages, black people are being sold. They are in the desert; their parents think they’re dead, but they are not dead, they are in the desert, in the Libyan villages, working in slavery.

See, see our brothers who are there…that day I was there too…it was hard for us, it was hard…

We need our African presidents, our African presidents, to do something, do something to help us, help us black people. Many are being held in Libya, they can neither come to Europe nor go back home. We have become a trading good for the Libyans. The Libyan, for when he needs it…

Did you see on the video I talked about before…here is the picture…when they made us leave the house they had us come here.

Look, we are sitting on the ground…we are sitting on the ground, we are in their hands. Look, there are immigrants who are being arrested. We were there and we didn’t know what to do.

Can you see? They sent soldiers, the soldiers who came to take us, to arrest us.

Now you can see the Arab, their Arab brother, who comes and buys us from them, to send us to work in the desert, in the various villages, to work for him under conditions of slavery: we were slaves.

Can you see the soldiers? And look…that day there were two deaths. When the guards arrived, they tried to escape…there they are, on the ground…they shot them…

Can you see? Can you see the Arab who is standing over there? You can’t see his face, but you can see his foot…they are the ones who shot these two.

So, here, we are asking for the help of the international community.

Translation: Greta Pallaver