WEBVTT - Introducing: The Outlaw Ocean | A war on migration, funded by the EU (Libya Pt. 1) 0:00:09.000 --> 0:00:11.760 Hello, and welcome back to Drill. This is a special 0:00:11.880 --> 0:00:15.760 bonus episode brought to you by the CBCS The Outlaw Ocean. 0:00:15.880 --> 0:00:19.279 It's a riveting anthology podcast hosted by Pulitzer Prize winning 0:00:19.320 --> 0:00:22.440 journalist Ian Urbina, and it brings us urgent stories from 0:00:22.480 --> 0:00:26.320 the vast, beautiful, and largely lawless open seas. 0:00:27.040 --> 0:00:29.640 You're about to hear the first episode of The Outlaw 0:00:29.640 --> 0:00:33.959 Ocean Season two. It's about the migration crisis currently unfolding 0:00:34.000 --> 0:00:37.000 in the Mediterranean Sea. In today's episode, you'll hear about 0:00:37.000 --> 0:00:41.280 an investigation that follows one rural farmer from Guinea Bissau. 0:00:41.880 --> 0:01:03.320 Take a listen, does. 0:01:03.160 --> 0:01:04.080 He have a ballpark? 0:01:04.120 --> 0:01:06.440 Sons of how many shots he's heard fired during the 0:01:06.480 --> 0:01:07.080 whole incident? 0:01:07.160 --> 0:01:15.840 Comien de tira thank step, please, thank you ple the 0:01:15.920 --> 0:01:18.440 sing but minimum five more than five? 0:01:18.720 --> 0:01:21.400 And which the shooting did it occur over the course 0:01:21.440 --> 0:01:23.480 of one minute, ten minutes. 0:01:28.640 --> 0:01:29.119 More than two. 0:01:34.959 --> 0:01:38.120 In twenty twenty one, over thirty thousand migrants arrived in 0:01:38.160 --> 0:01:42.640 Italy after crossing the Mediterranean Sea. Many of these migrants 0:01:42.680 --> 0:01:45.800 came from Sub Saharan Africa and when they try to 0:01:45.800 --> 0:01:51.320 head to Europe, they often go to Libya. Libya is 0:01:51.400 --> 0:01:54.720 a popular place for them to launch across the Mediterranean 0:01:54.800 --> 0:01:59.080 because the trip is relatively short and the traffickers there 0:01:59.160 --> 0:02:02.440 in Libya simple charged less than they do in places 0:02:02.440 --> 0:02:06.680 like Morocco or Tunisia. But this crossing is also one 0:02:06.680 --> 0:02:09.760 of the most dangerous, and that number of thirty thousand 0:02:09.800 --> 0:02:13.520 people doesn't take into account those who don't make it. 0:02:14.760 --> 0:02:17.720 Does he remember the date of the launch. 0:02:23.240 --> 0:02:26.160 Mohammad David is one of those migrants who never landed 0:02:26.200 --> 0:02:29.320 in Italy. I'm talking to him through Pierre Qatar, a 0:02:29.360 --> 0:02:33.440 photographer and translator from my team. Mohammed David in about 0:02:33.480 --> 0:02:35.880 one hundred and thirty others tried to make the crossing 0:02:35.960 --> 0:02:41.000 in a small inflatable boat called a zodiac. Almost one 0:02:41.000 --> 0:02:42.839 of the others in the boat was a man from 0:02:42.880 --> 0:02:45.480 Guinea Bissau named Aliu Kande, and. 0:02:45.440 --> 0:02:47.799 He remembers seeing Aliu in the boat and did he 0:02:47.880 --> 0:02:52.359 talk to him? And I saw. 0:02:54.600 --> 0:02:57.280 In May of twenty twenty one, I traveled to Libya. 0:02:57.720 --> 0:03:00.360 I wanted to learn why so many migrants were trying 0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:03.840 to make this incredibly dangerous journey from Libya Italy and 0:03:04.000 --> 0:03:06.640 to investigate the human rights abuses that were happening on 0:03:06.680 --> 0:03:10.760 the Mediterranean. I also wanted to know the EU's role 0:03:10.880 --> 0:03:14.400 in orchestrating these abuses and how that was connected to 0:03:14.480 --> 0:03:21.480 the thousands of migrants being held in Libyan prisons. All right, 0:03:21.480 --> 0:03:24.000 so then how long would it take between the bullet 0:03:24.040 --> 0:03:25.440 in his neck and he's dead? 0:03:25.919 --> 0:03:41.800 How long? About an hour? An hour? Around an hour? 0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:45.120 So he was bleeding out for an hour. 0:03:50.520 --> 0:03:53.400 Aliu Conde died from a bullet wound to the neck 0:03:54.040 --> 0:03:58.760 inside a secret Libyan prison called Al Mabani. His death 0:03:58.880 --> 0:04:02.800 is just one of many. Every year, tens of thousands 0:04:02.800 --> 0:04:06.040 of migrants take the same risks and face the same 0:04:06.080 --> 0:04:09.360 profound dangers in their quest to reach a better life 0:04:09.400 --> 0:04:13.960 in Europe. Those that die are casualties in a proxy 0:04:14.080 --> 0:04:17.880 war that's being funded by the European Union and carried 0:04:17.920 --> 0:04:25.400 out by Libyan forces. My team and I spent months 0:04:25.440 --> 0:04:28.360 tracing Aliu's path from a small village in Sub Saharan 0:04:28.400 --> 0:04:32.600 Africa to his death in Tripoli. I've been covering stories 0:04:32.640 --> 0:04:35.159 like this for decades, and that reporting has taken me 0:04:35.200 --> 0:04:39.400 all over the planet. This investigation turned out to be 0:04:39.480 --> 0:04:45.039 one of the most dangerous of my career. I'm Ian Urbina, 0:04:45.080 --> 0:05:27.960 and this is the outlaw Ocean. Aliu Conde's story starts 0:05:28.000 --> 0:05:30.280 in a small village in Guinea Bissau, one of the 0:05:30.320 --> 0:05:37.400 poorest countries in Africa. Ali's mother told us he was 0:05:37.440 --> 0:05:39.960 born on a Monday. He lived in the village in 0:05:40.000 --> 0:05:43.000 a small clay house with his wife, Hava, and two children. 0:05:48.040 --> 0:05:50.640 His father told us that he worked the fields and 0:05:50.839 --> 0:05:55.240 herded cattle on the family farm, where they grew cassava, mangoes, 0:05:55.320 --> 0:06:00.000 and cashews. Over the past few years, weather patterns had 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:04.080 started to shift. The dry seasons were too hot, the 0:06:04.160 --> 0:06:07.280 rainy seasons were too wet, and the yields from their 0:06:07.320 --> 0:06:13.039 crops were getting steadily smaller. Their four skinny cows were 0:06:13.040 --> 0:06:16.920 hardly able to produce milk. Life on the farm was hard, 0:06:16.960 --> 0:06:26.000 and every season it seemed to be getting harder. Ali's wife, Hava, 0:06:26.080 --> 0:06:33.040 said that he was tired of living in poverty. Hava 0:06:33.279 --> 0:06:35.760 was eight months pregnant with their third child at the time, 0:06:36.520 --> 0:06:39.040 and Aliu was worried that he was failing before God 0:06:39.120 --> 0:06:42.839 to provide for his family. Aliu had two older brothers 0:06:42.880 --> 0:06:44.840 who had left Guinea Basau for Europe and had been 0:06:44.880 --> 0:06:48.440 sending money back home. He decided it was his turn 0:06:48.480 --> 0:06:51.200 to leave the village. Hava and the rest of his 0:06:51.279 --> 0:07:01.559 family supported the decision. Aliu's father told him whoever goes 0:07:01.600 --> 0:07:08.760 abroad brings fortune at home. Before leaving his village, Aliu 0:07:08.839 --> 0:07:12.679 called his brother Denbas and asked for advice. Denbas had 0:07:12.920 --> 0:07:15.400 left Guinea Bissau and made it to Italy, where he 0:07:15.440 --> 0:07:20.760 still lives. We asked Denbas about that phone call. He 0:07:20.800 --> 0:07:24.160 warned Aliu against trying to follow him there. Getting to 0:07:24.240 --> 0:07:30.360 Italy would mean crossing the Mediterranean from Libya. Denbas said 0:07:30.360 --> 0:07:33.680 the trip was much too dangerous. He told Aliu that 0:07:33.760 --> 0:07:37.400 the safest route to Europe would be from Morocco to Spain, 0:07:37.640 --> 0:07:41.520 where their other brother lived. The trip would be more expensive, 0:07:41.640 --> 0:07:45.400 but at only fourteen kilometers, it would also be the 0:07:45.480 --> 0:07:56.840 fastest way, and in September twenty nineteen, Aliu Conde decided 0:07:56.880 --> 0:08:00.120 that the risk was worth taking and he began his journey. 0:08:00.600 --> 0:08:04.239 He carried a koran, a leather diary, two pairs of pants, 0:08:04.320 --> 0:08:08.640 two t shirts, and six hundred euros. He was twenty 0:08:08.680 --> 0:08:14.200 eight years old. It took Aliu a month across Mali 0:08:14.240 --> 0:08:17.720 in Algeria before landing in Morocco. When he arrived, he 0:08:17.760 --> 0:08:20.880 discovered that the price to get to Spain was triple 0:08:21.000 --> 0:08:23.840 what he could pay. He called his family and asked 0:08:23.880 --> 0:08:26.720 for help. There was no way they could afford it either. 0:08:29.800 --> 0:08:39.880 Aliu's only option was Libya. One of my overarching missions 0:08:39.920 --> 0:08:43.400 with the outlo Ocean Project is to chronicle the weird 0:08:43.520 --> 0:08:47.520 and wild world that exists offshore in all its different forms. 0:08:47.800 --> 0:08:50.240 And if that's our goal, then you have to cover 0:08:50.320 --> 0:08:54.080 the Mediterranean crisis, specifically the tens of thousands of people 0:08:54.240 --> 0:08:57.559 that are trying desperately to cross the Mediterranean and get 0:08:57.600 --> 0:09:01.240 to Europe. I think it's important point out that in 0:09:01.280 --> 0:09:05.040 some places, at least, the criminalization of migration is a 0:09:05.080 --> 0:09:08.480 pretty new phenomena. If you go back even ten years, 0:09:08.520 --> 0:09:11.160 there are plenty of places, including in Africa, where it 0:09:11.240 --> 0:09:14.880 used to be normal, legal, and sometimes even encouraged for 0:09:14.960 --> 0:09:19.680 people to migrate between countries that might be for seasonal 0:09:19.720 --> 0:09:23.280 work or for permanent moves by folks like Aliu who 0:09:23.360 --> 0:09:27.760 hope to improve a family's fortunes. And now that kind 0:09:27.840 --> 0:09:30.160 of movement across borders is illegal. 0:09:30.920 --> 0:09:31.240 Okay. 0:09:31.280 --> 0:09:36.320 So couple the illegality of migration with the reality of 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:39.800 climate change, which is a massive driver of migration, and 0:09:39.840 --> 0:09:44.600 you have a very scary situation. Academics estimate that over 0:09:44.640 --> 0:09:47.040 the next fifty years, one hundred and fifty million people 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:50.440 are likely to migrate, and that movement will largely be 0:09:50.520 --> 0:09:54.400 driven by climate change. And most of this climate migration 0:09:54.480 --> 0:09:58.439 will involve folks from poorer nations moving to richer nations. 0:09:59.280 --> 0:10:01.840 If you look to the the Mediterranean, you can already 0:10:01.840 --> 0:10:04.440 see this happening right. A lot of these migrants are 0:10:04.440 --> 0:10:08.120 headed for Italy. In particular, according to the UN, thirty 0:10:08.160 --> 0:10:11.480 one thousand, six hundred migrants crossed from North Africa to 0:10:11.520 --> 0:10:14.440 Italy in twenty twenty one. In twenty twenty two, that 0:10:14.559 --> 0:10:17.480 number was about one hundred and five thousand. The most 0:10:17.520 --> 0:10:20.240 recent figures for twenty twenty three put the number at 0:10:20.240 --> 0:10:23.880 around one hundred and fifty three thousand. Those are massive 0:10:24.000 --> 0:10:28.720 numbers of people coming from places like Bangladesh, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Gambia, Sudan. 0:10:29.520 --> 0:10:33.480 They're migrating north to countries like Libya and trying to 0:10:33.520 --> 0:10:36.920 find their way across the Mediterranean to Europe from there. 0:10:37.720 --> 0:10:40.320 The Italian government has said that it believes there are 0:10:40.400 --> 0:10:44.160 upwards of seven hundred thousand migrants currently in Libya hoping 0:10:44.200 --> 0:10:48.600 to make the trip. So how has the EU and 0:10:48.640 --> 0:10:52.640 Italy responded. Well, what they've done has been to try 0:10:52.679 --> 0:10:56.800 their best to prevent these migrants from ever touching European soil, 0:10:57.120 --> 0:10:59.760 and one of the ways that they've done this is 0:10:59.800 --> 0:11:05.079 to outsourced border enforcement to places like Libya. Nearly two 0:11:05.160 --> 0:11:08.800 hundred migrants were brought to the Italian port of Pozzallo 0:11:08.920 --> 0:11:12.200 early Monday of bordered the Italian Coast Guard ships sailing 0:11:12.280 --> 0:11:13.199 under the front Tex. 0:11:13.280 --> 0:11:17.320 Frontext, the European Border Agency, has described its concern about 0:11:17.360 --> 0:11:21.640 what it calls a steady increase in irregular migration. 0:11:21.440 --> 0:11:23.640 Across to pay more money to have to use external 0:11:23.679 --> 0:11:25.760 border safeguard, it meaning more money for fron. 0:11:25.600 --> 0:11:31.240 Text accused donor funded charity rescue ships of colluding with traffickers. 0:11:32.040 --> 0:11:37.840 Frontext is the EU Coast Guarden border agency and its 0:11:37.880 --> 0:11:43.040 mission is to defend the sovereignty of EU external borders. 0:11:43.640 --> 0:11:47.280 That's Judith Sunderland. She's the Associate director in the Europe 0:11:47.320 --> 0:11:50.720 and Central Asia Division at Human Rights Watch. She's been 0:11:50.760 --> 0:11:54.199 researching human rights abuses against migrants and refugees for more 0:11:54.240 --> 0:11:54.960 than a decade. 0:11:56.440 --> 0:12:00.680 The whole point of the agency is to defend the 0:12:00.840 --> 0:12:07.000 sovereignty of EU external borders. It now has a much 0:12:07.200 --> 0:12:11.600 larger role in that than ever before. Its budget has 0:12:11.760 --> 0:12:15.400 massively increased. I can tell you that in twenty fifteen, 0:12:15.480 --> 0:12:18.200 for example, Frontech's had a budget around one hundred and 0:12:18.200 --> 0:12:22.679 forty three million euros, and in twenty twenty two its 0:12:22.720 --> 0:12:26.920 budget was over seven hundred and fifty million euros. So 0:12:28.000 --> 0:12:33.280 it has massively expanded its powers, its mandate and its budget. 0:12:34.080 --> 0:12:40.120 While it uses at times a humanitarian rhetoric to justify 0:12:40.520 --> 0:12:46.240 its operations, it is also quite unabashedly clear in its 0:12:46.240 --> 0:12:48.920 in its main mission, which is which is really to 0:12:48.960 --> 0:12:54.520 detect what it calls illegal crossings of external borders and 0:12:54.880 --> 0:12:57.240 prevent and deter those crossings. 0:12:57.880 --> 0:13:02.320 The blocking of other national analities before they even reach 0:13:02.920 --> 0:13:06.480 EU soil is a bit of a reach, and yet 0:13:06.559 --> 0:13:09.079 that's what Frontechs is doing over the Mediterranean. 0:13:10.040 --> 0:13:16.520 Frontechs will often say that its aerial surveillance saves lives 0:13:16.880 --> 0:13:21.679 and that by alerting relevant authorities it is ensuring that 0:13:22.040 --> 0:13:25.480 people in distress at sea are rescued. 0:13:25.720 --> 0:13:31.480 But it's quite clear that the goal of this excessive 0:13:31.559 --> 0:13:35.320 network of aerial surveillance is not rescue but rather interception. 0:13:36.600 --> 0:13:40.040 When they see the migrant vessels, they call in the coordinates. 0:13:40.320 --> 0:13:42.960 They know that they would get in legal trouble if 0:13:43.000 --> 0:13:46.760 the coordinates were called directly to the Libyans. Instead, FRONTECHS 0:13:47.080 --> 0:13:53.240 calls it into a national partner, typically the coastal nations Malta, Spain, Italy, 0:13:53.640 --> 0:13:57.880 Greece and those EU players on land then hand off 0:13:57.920 --> 0:14:02.000 the coordinates to the Libyans. Thebbeians dispatch the Libyan Coastguard 0:14:02.080 --> 0:14:05.400 vessel to the coordinates and they arrive to the scene 0:14:05.440 --> 0:14:08.200 where the migrant vessel is. On the other side, you 0:14:08.320 --> 0:14:11.600 have players like doctors without borders, and they're coming at 0:14:11.600 --> 0:14:16.040 it from the exact opposite direction literally geographically and politically, 0:14:16.160 --> 0:14:18.080 and you know, in terms of their goal, they're trying 0:14:18.120 --> 0:14:21.720 to rescue the migrants, get to the vessel, bring those 0:14:21.760 --> 0:14:25.440 migrants quickly on board, and then head further out into 0:14:25.480 --> 0:14:28.840 international waters where the Libyans have less jurisdiction. 0:14:29.760 --> 0:14:34.640 FUNTECHS has a very clear policy of not informing non 0:14:34.720 --> 0:14:40.440 governmental organizations when they detect a boat of migrants and refugees. 0:14:41.320 --> 0:14:47.239 Under international law, you are never allowed to return migrants 0:14:47.360 --> 0:14:50.320 or refugees to a place that has been deemed not 0:14:50.520 --> 0:14:53.040 a place of safety, and Libya has been ruled not 0:14:53.160 --> 0:14:54.640 a place of safety. It's a war zone. 0:14:55.000 --> 0:14:55.760 So it is a. 0:14:55.720 --> 0:15:00.320 Crime for ships, whether they're merchant vessels or the doctors 0:15:00.360 --> 0:15:02.680 out borders folks to take those folks to Libya, but 0:15:02.840 --> 0:15:06.840 Libya can bring them back there. They get captured within 0:15:06.960 --> 0:15:10.479 ninety miles from Libyan shores and brought back to Libyan gulags. 0:15:11.320 --> 0:15:14.840 It's worth thinking of the Libyan Coast Guard as a 0:15:14.880 --> 0:15:19.880 shadow immigration system for the EU. It's a proxy force. 0:15:20.040 --> 0:15:23.720 It's an outsourced force that the EU uses to do 0:15:23.800 --> 0:15:26.080 its dirty work when it comes to migration control. 0:15:27.560 --> 0:15:31.040 Their interest is in intercepting the boats. It's not in 0:15:31.200 --> 0:15:33.760 rescuing people. It's not in ensuring that people are safe 0:15:34.160 --> 0:15:38.400 or treated as humanely or with dignity. They have threatened 0:15:38.640 --> 0:15:43.360 non governmental rescue organizations who are out in the Mediterranean. 0:15:43.520 --> 0:15:49.280 See there is ample evidence of collusion between various Libbying 0:15:49.320 --> 0:15:54.520 Coast Guard units trafficking and smuggling networks. So they have 0:15:55.320 --> 0:16:00.120 a very strong interest in intercepting people that see and 0:16:00.200 --> 0:16:05.920 taking them back to almost certain detention in nightmarish detention 0:16:06.120 --> 0:16:11.600 centers in Libya where they are subjected to further extortion 0:16:12.360 --> 0:16:17.560 and forced labor and any you know, all manner of violence. 0:16:18.240 --> 0:16:21.760 Let me remind this is in international waters. The Libyans 0:16:21.800 --> 0:16:24.360 actually do not have the jurisdiction to do this legally, 0:16:24.840 --> 0:16:26.760 and yet they do. They've got the guns and they've 0:16:26.760 --> 0:16:29.440 got the power, and the EU is willfully looking the 0:16:29.480 --> 0:16:31.880 other way when they make these threats or they open 0:16:31.960 --> 0:16:35.360 fire on vessels over which they have no jurisdiction to 0:16:35.440 --> 0:16:37.880 demand that those migrants climb on board their ship. 0:16:38.560 --> 0:16:41.200 You know, we've seen the Libyan Coast Guard use live 0:16:41.240 --> 0:16:45.400 bullets on people while they're trying to perform an interception, 0:16:45.440 --> 0:16:57.480 which they will try to cast as a rescue. 0:16:57.960 --> 0:16:59.040 We dine Basava. 0:17:02.840 --> 0:17:06.000 When Aliu arrived in Libya on December tenth, twenty twenty, 0:17:06.240 --> 0:17:08.760 he found a cheap place to stay with some other 0:17:08.840 --> 0:17:12.840 migrants in a slum called Gargoresch. Gargresh is a kind 0:17:12.880 --> 0:17:16.720 of parallel universe in Tripoli that's home to tens of 0:17:16.760 --> 0:17:21.000 thousands of dark skinned African migrants. Most of them, like Aliu, 0:17:21.200 --> 0:17:25.520 are from Sub Saharan countries. Aliu had a great uncle, 0:17:25.920 --> 0:17:30.280 Demba Balday, who had been living in Gargresh for years. 0:17:31.240 --> 0:17:35.080 When Aliu arrived in Tripoli, Demba helped him find work. 0:17:36.160 --> 0:17:42.439 My colleague Pierre spoke to him on the phone. For 0:17:42.480 --> 0:17:44.920 the next few months, Aliu worked as a house painter, 0:17:45.080 --> 0:17:47.400 trying to save up the money he'd need to pay 0:17:47.400 --> 0:17:51.239 a trafficker to ferry him to Italy. Just like his 0:17:51.320 --> 0:17:56.040 two older brothers, Aliu's uncle, Demba discouraged him from making 0:17:56.040 --> 0:17:58.920 the trip across the Mediterranean. No no, no, no, no no, 0:18:00.119 --> 0:18:06.240 we Dema told him that's the root of death. I 0:18:06.320 --> 0:18:09.119 wanted to see what was really going on in Libya 0:18:09.160 --> 0:18:11.200 and what the situation was like for ali U Kande 0:18:11.320 --> 0:18:14.119 and all the other migrants forced to make these same 0:18:14.320 --> 0:18:17.920 life or death choices, and that meant going to Tripleli. 0:18:19.520 --> 0:18:23.040 My team landed in TRIPLEI in May twenty twenty one. 0:18:23.760 --> 0:18:27.200 I was joined by Pierre Qatar, the translator you heard earlier, 0:18:27.520 --> 0:18:31.680 my editor Joe Sexton, and another filmmaker named Maya Doles. 0:18:33.840 --> 0:18:36.919 We arrive at the airport and security is there to 0:18:37.000 --> 0:18:40.560 greet us, and immediately things are a little shady. Our 0:18:40.560 --> 0:18:42.920 passports are taken away. We're not allowed to stay with 0:18:43.000 --> 0:18:46.320 them and see what's being discussed. That already gave me pause. 0:18:46.440 --> 0:18:48.560 We get in the car. We had to not the 0:18:48.880 --> 0:18:51.600 hotel that we had chosen, but this other hotel that 0:18:51.640 --> 0:18:54.159 they insist we stay at, and you know, the next 0:18:54.280 --> 0:18:57.840 week is a series of, you know, a dozen similar 0:18:57.920 --> 0:19:02.520 sort of surprises of that that just become this escalating 0:19:02.640 --> 0:19:07.199 situation where it's very obvious that the intention here is 0:19:07.240 --> 0:19:09.760 for us to not do our job, not to talk 0:19:09.760 --> 0:19:14.240 to people, not to report. But from my view, our 0:19:14.280 --> 0:19:18.320 mission remained, you know, our job was to investigate this murder, 0:19:18.359 --> 0:19:21.760 investigate this wider problem, and if we had to slalom 0:19:21.840 --> 0:19:25.320 around their hurdles, we were going to slalom around their hurdles. 0:19:25.359 --> 0:19:28.200 But we were not going to stop, you know, and 0:19:28.280 --> 0:19:30.800 not do the job. If we were, we were going 0:19:30.880 --> 0:19:32.520 to leave the country. But there was no reason to 0:19:32.560 --> 0:19:43.880 stay and sit in a hotel for two weeks. Gargresh 0:19:43.920 --> 0:19:47.960 historically is a thriving section of the city with brick 0:19:48.000 --> 0:19:51.720 and mortar shops and the like, but in the last 0:19:51.760 --> 0:19:56.080 couple decades at least, it has become also this other thing, 0:19:56.160 --> 0:20:00.200 which is the shanty town that houses tens of thousands 0:20:00.240 --> 0:20:03.680 of migrants who end up there. The sense I got 0:20:03.920 --> 0:20:08.919 from a dozen migrants, most of whom live in Gargresh 0:20:09.080 --> 0:20:13.399 is that as dirty and dark a place as it is, 0:20:13.400 --> 0:20:16.080 is actually the one place they feel safe because there 0:20:16.119 --> 0:20:19.760 are lots of them and they can disappear. The larger 0:20:19.880 --> 0:20:23.399 experience when you talk to the migrants about Tripoli is 0:20:24.359 --> 0:20:31.000 the overwhelming sense of fear that at any moment, anywhere 0:20:31.160 --> 0:20:35.240 outside of Gargresh especially, they can be grabbed by anyone. 0:20:36.280 --> 0:20:41.399 There's a lot of different motivations for kidnapping, and if 0:20:41.480 --> 0:20:44.320 you're a migrant, you walk around the city knowing that 0:20:44.640 --> 0:20:45.119 can occur. 0:20:48.640 --> 0:20:51.160 Because he wants to go closer to where he's lived, 0:20:51.200 --> 0:20:52.639 so he doesn't feel comfortable around here. 0:20:52.680 --> 0:20:56.679 So Mohammed David is the migrant you heard at the 0:20:56.680 --> 0:20:59.960 beginning of this episode, and his story isn't much different 0:21:00.119 --> 0:21:04.760 from Aliu's. He's originally from the Ivory Coast. After his 0:21:04.840 --> 0:21:07.760 wife gave birth to a son, it became harder and 0:21:07.800 --> 0:21:11.879 harder for Muhammad David to provide for his family, so 0:21:12.000 --> 0:21:15.240 he made the same decision ali did to leave home 0:21:15.760 --> 0:21:18.399 and try to find a better life in Europe. He 0:21:18.480 --> 0:21:21.800 traveled to Burkina Fasso and landed in Tripoli, where he 0:21:21.880 --> 0:21:24.760 saved up some money and paid a trafficker to bring 0:21:24.840 --> 0:21:28.720 him to Italy. 0:21:26.240 --> 0:21:30.800 They were in the same boat, and how they're in 0:21:30.840 --> 0:21:41.840 the same boat. They what kind of person was all? 0:21:42.119 --> 0:21:42.320 You know? 0:21:42.560 --> 0:21:52.800 That's he said. Aliu was someone who was called he was. 0:21:52.760 --> 0:21:54.760 Just like you, the same thing. 0:21:54.680 --> 0:21:56.600 Okay, and he was from Guinea Bissau. 0:21:56.880 --> 0:21:58.600 Yes, so you speak. 0:22:00.240 --> 0:22:02.840 Once we met Muhammed David, it didn't take long for 0:22:02.920 --> 0:22:04.720 us to realize that he was going to be an 0:22:04.760 --> 0:22:08.840 incredibly valuable source. But he knew that talking to foreign 0:22:08.920 --> 0:22:11.679 journalists in public was a quick way of attracting the 0:22:11.720 --> 0:22:15.199 wrong kind of attention. He knew that undercover security was 0:22:15.240 --> 0:22:19.359 everywhere and that migrants were always at risk. My team 0:22:19.400 --> 0:22:21.919 had been assigned to security detail by the Libyan government, 0:22:22.359 --> 0:22:25.840 and Muhammad David didn't trust them. He insisted that if 0:22:25.840 --> 0:22:28.280 we were going to talk with him, we needed to 0:22:28.320 --> 0:22:30.800 come to his home in Gargash. 0:22:33.920 --> 0:22:35.680 Fifteen winning one. 0:22:35.800 --> 0:22:38.359 So we set up one of the early meetings with 0:22:38.440 --> 0:22:41.520 him in Gargrash and we brought food and one of 0:22:41.560 --> 0:22:44.200 his terms was, look, you got to lose the security. 0:22:44.320 --> 0:22:47.719 You can't come into Gargrash with your security detail, and 0:22:47.760 --> 0:22:50.240 you certainly can't come near where I'm staying. If you've 0:22:50.240 --> 0:22:53.200 got those guys in tow the security guys had said, 0:22:53.480 --> 0:22:57.080 you're not allowed to leave our line of sight. So 0:22:57.640 --> 0:22:59.680 this put me in a bit of a bind. Obviously 0:22:59.680 --> 0:23:01.760 I was going to lean towards Mohammed David, but ultimately 0:23:01.800 --> 0:23:04.719 what I said to the security guys was, look, you're 0:23:04.760 --> 0:23:06.639 going to take me into this location. I'm going to 0:23:06.680 --> 0:23:09.160 meet someone, and then he's going to walk me into 0:23:09.160 --> 0:23:10.920 where he's staying and we're going to have dinner with him. 0:23:11.320 --> 0:23:13.919 I will never be further than five hundred meters from you, 0:23:14.000 --> 0:23:16.280 but you will not see where I am exactly, because 0:23:16.280 --> 0:23:18.400 that's the term I struck with the migrant And if 0:23:18.400 --> 0:23:20.880 you're not okay with that, then I'm sorry, but that's 0:23:20.920 --> 0:23:22.720 what I need to do so as to make him 0:23:22.720 --> 0:23:25.880 safe and make him feel safe. And that's what we did. 0:23:27.440 --> 0:23:30.200 We met Mohammed David on a street corner a couple 0:23:30.200 --> 0:23:33.160 of blocks away from Gargresh. We walked through some alleys, 0:23:33.280 --> 0:23:35.800 winding our way through the night into the depths of Gargresh. 0:23:35.960 --> 0:23:40.640 The security detail was maybe a block away, and then 0:23:40.680 --> 0:23:42.600 once we got into Gargresh, we did a couple of 0:23:42.600 --> 0:23:45.800 blind turns to shake them and then went with Muhammad 0:23:45.840 --> 0:23:47.080 David sat down and. 0:23:48.280 --> 0:23:53.000 From the boat and then took us to their prison. 0:23:53.440 --> 0:23:56.560 Any the more we talked to Mohammed David and other 0:23:56.600 --> 0:23:59.359 people who knew Ali you, the more a really clear 0:23:59.480 --> 0:24:02.879 picture of him started to come together. The impression I 0:24:02.880 --> 0:24:05.119 got of him was that he was quiet, kind of introverted, 0:24:05.119 --> 0:24:08.440 and watchful, maybe a bit shy. He was a gentle 0:24:08.520 --> 0:24:11.280 young man who was quick to smile. He like soccer 0:24:11.400 --> 0:24:14.359 and rap music. Don't forget he was a whiral kid 0:24:14.440 --> 0:24:16.439 who lived most of his life on a farm in 0:24:16.480 --> 0:24:19.439 a remote village, so he didn't have that kind of 0:24:19.480 --> 0:24:23.840 hardened street sensibility to him. He was also less mature 0:24:23.920 --> 0:24:26.719 than say Muhammed David or some of the others who 0:24:26.760 --> 0:24:34.760 were trying to undertake a similar journey to Europe. We'd 0:24:34.800 --> 0:24:37.239 been set up and filming for about twenty minutes and 0:24:37.280 --> 0:24:40.399 that's when my phone started ringing and things very quickly 0:24:40.480 --> 0:24:41.720 started going sideways. 0:24:42.400 --> 0:24:45.400 You hear me, So they kept beating you. I figure, 0:24:45.440 --> 0:24:48.480 if you didn't want to give money, we will walk 0:24:48.560 --> 0:24:52.720 back in one hour give and then he would need 0:24:52.760 --> 0:24:55.760 to tell leave us an our community, the police just 0:24:56.280 --> 0:24:59.239 to tell are you to leave us? Get we are 0:24:59.240 --> 0:25:03.320 talking and were any get understand, but you gotta walk away, 0:25:03.400 --> 0:25:04.560 Can you walk away a little bit? 0:25:05.680 --> 0:25:08.760 The security detail had called the bosses of the security company. 0:25:08.800 --> 0:25:12.600 The bosses had called local close and playing closed police 0:25:12.760 --> 0:25:15.600 around Gargresh, who spy on these guys. And there was 0:25:15.640 --> 0:25:20.840 this sort of growing fury around me and these Westerners 0:25:20.840 --> 0:25:24.320 who were in the depths of Gargresh talking to migrants, 0:25:24.359 --> 0:25:27.320 and so over the next twenty minutes, you know, I 0:25:27.440 --> 0:25:33.560 got increasingly angry, screaming calls from various folks saying where 0:25:33.640 --> 0:25:37.040 are you. We're going to storm Gargresh to come get you. 0:25:37.040 --> 0:25:39.719 You're not allowed to be talking with them without us present, 0:25:39.720 --> 0:25:42.240 et cetera, et cetera. And I was saying, you know, 0:25:42.440 --> 0:25:44.119 we are only five hundred meters. 0:25:43.840 --> 0:25:46.000 Away, we know where you are. 0:25:46.119 --> 0:25:48.639 If there's a problem, we will contact you. We can 0:25:48.680 --> 0:25:51.600 get out easily, don't worry, We're fine, and you need 0:25:51.640 --> 0:25:54.560 to just calm down and back off. And after about 0:25:54.560 --> 0:25:57.800 thirty minutes, when the threats escalated to a pretty high degree, 0:25:57.840 --> 0:25:59.360 I told my career, look, we got to pull out 0:25:59.359 --> 0:26:04.000 of here because this is going to make Mohammed David unsafe. 0:26:02.920 --> 0:26:04.880 For their sake. Get out of here because they're setting 0:26:04.920 --> 0:26:05.280 the police. 0:26:06.280 --> 0:26:13.679 And we pulled out and that's when, you know, I 0:26:13.720 --> 0:26:16.119 got scolded on the street and yelled at by the 0:26:16.160 --> 0:26:18.440 police chief, and he said he was going to recommend 0:26:18.520 --> 0:26:20.640 having us thrown out of the country for talking to migrants. 0:26:20.640 --> 0:26:22.520 And we went back to the hotel, and that's when 0:26:22.520 --> 0:26:25.560 I got calls from the head of the security company 0:26:25.560 --> 0:26:27.800 that had been put on us by the government, and 0:26:28.520 --> 0:26:37.080 was further told that we had broken their rules. From 0:26:37.119 --> 0:26:40.560 there forward, we were officially put on house arrest. We 0:26:40.560 --> 0:26:43.400 were not supposed to talk further with migrants without permission. 0:26:43.760 --> 0:26:47.040 We were not supposed to talk with ambassadors or foreign officials. 0:26:47.320 --> 0:26:49.199 We were not allowed to go to certain parts of 0:26:49.200 --> 0:26:52.840 the city, including Gargresh. You know, we were not allowed 0:26:52.880 --> 0:26:57.119 to leave the hotel. Bottom line, the very people that 0:26:57.200 --> 0:27:00.000 were supposed to protect us were now sort of incarcerating us. 0:27:00.560 --> 0:27:04.160 And the very people that were meaning the government officials 0:27:04.200 --> 0:27:06.600 who were supposed to be welcoming us into the country 0:27:07.080 --> 0:27:11.200