Gambians Organize to Stop Young Migrants Risking it All

PHOTO: SMBC News

By Emil Touray | 3 September 2017

DIGITAL JOURNAL (AFP) — After being stripped, beaten, robbed, enslaved and finally deported back to The Gambia, Karamo Keita is clear: no young Gambian should go through what he did in Libya.

Keita and fellow migrants who suffered horrific abuses on their journey through the Sahara desert have formed a group to agitate for job creation from the new government and to dampen expectations among their peers that a life in Europe is within easy reach.

“We experienced the journey. We know the difficulties aspiring migrants face on the way and in Libya,” Keita, 27, told AFP, sitting under a tree at a recent meeting of Youths Against Illegal Migration near the capital Banjul.

So far this year, more than 5,400 Gambians have already made it to the shores of Italy from Libya, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), making Africa’s smallest mainland nation the highest per capita source of migrants making the perilous crossing. […]

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