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Migrants returned to Ghana say they can’t afford to stay [1]

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Date: 2023-11

Adu Poku’s farming business in Ghana was decimated by cheap tomatoes imported from Italy. So he decided to take a chance and travel to find better opportunities. He headed for Italy to farm the same tomatoes that had forced him out of work – but a gruelling journey, poverty, sickness and extreme violence awaited him. Adu is one of six migrant workers who told us about their experiences of migration for this series. An explanation of how we produced this interview can be found at the end.

Raphel Ahenu (for BTS): I understand you recently returned from Libya. What were you doing before you travelled there?

Adu Poku: My name is Adu Poku. I am 45 years old and a father of four. I was born in Gyedu, a village in Ghana, where I’ve lived all my life. My family’s financial situation became unbearable when our twins were born, so I decided to try my luck overseas.

Raphel: What caused your financial problems?

Adu: I was a farmer, like most people in this area. I mostly grew maize, but then a mining company came and took over most of our land. I switched to growing okra, tomatoes and other vegetables on the land we had left, but it was a disaster.

Raphel: Are those vegetables not profitable?

Adu: There were no buyers! Most people now buy foreign, tinned tomatoes and paste because they’re cheaper than locally-grown, fresh tomatoes. We suffered heavy losses year after year. The market women offered us prices that didn’t cover even half of what we spent growing the food. When we complained, they said that they couldn’t pay us more without losing money themselves, so we could either accept their bad offer or go home empty handed. It was unbearable. We worked long days in the sun for months, and in the end we didn’t even earn 600 GHS (£43) from the farm.

Raphel: Is this is why you decided to travel?

Adu: Yes, there was no use staying when I couldn’t support my family.

Raphel: How did you make your travel plans?

Adu: A woman who used to buy from our farm put me in touch with a man who helped people travel to Italy. He told me that the tomato farmers who travelled with him are now working on tomato farms in Italy. That’s where the cheap tinned tomatoes come from, so I felt bad about this. But hunger and hardship make a man do things he doesn’t want to do. Staying was no longer an option for me.

Raphel: How much did he charge you? How did you pay?

Adu: I paid him 3,000 GHS (~£210) to provide us with initial directions and contacts. We had to pay someone new at every stage of the journey though, so the total cost kept rising. I was already in debt to my uncle, but he loaned me more because he thought I would make it back once I arrived in Italy. By the time we reached Libya, I was almost 15,000 GHS (~£1,050) in debt.

Raphel: How did you travel?

Adu: We went through the desert. We first drove to Burkina Faso, then to Niger. I was out of money by the time we arrived in Niger, so I found work on a construction site. I worked there for almost two weeks. Then my uncle sent more money, and combined with my earnings it was enough for me to join a car going through the desert.

Raphel: What was the desert route like?

Adu: It was dangerous! I’m glad I didn’t know how hard it would be, otherwise I don’t know if I would’ve gone.

Some of the people in the car had done the crossing four times already. The sun was scorching hot and it was so windy. If your bare feet touched the sand, you would urinate on yourself from the pain. We arrived in Libya at night, and had to scatter immediately to avoid getting arrested. I called the numbers my contact had given me, and they came to pick us up.

Raphel: What happened then?

Adu: I got sick with malaria right after we arrived in Libya. I could barely move for a month. I was really scared – I didn’t want to die in someone else’s country. My friends called my people back home and they sent money for medicine and food. Little by little, I recovered.

I only started thinking of Italy again when I was better. But I had run out of money and couldn’t borrow any more from my uncle. So I found work in Libya in order to pay for the next crossing.

I met a group of Ghanaians who were doing construction work, so I joined them. I had only ever worked in farming except for my two weeks in Niger. It was hard, physical work and the Libyans were racist towards us. It was terrible. Those of us who are Black were forced to work day and night, but labourers from Libya were not.

Raphel: How long did you wait before you tried to go to Italy?

Adu: Muggers robbed me of my savings several times in Libya, so I kept having to start over. That’s how life is as an illegal immigrant.

Finally, after seven months in Libya, I had enough to pay for a place on a boat. I had never seen the sea before and was nervous to cross. Maybe this is why I nearly drowned. I was at the back of the big rubber boat, right on the edge, and when the boat took off I fell out and it left me behind!

I blacked out in the water. When I woke up, I was with the Libyan authorities. They had been arresting people on the shore and picked me up when they saw I wasn’t dead. I later found out that our boat had capsized on the journey. The two men who left Ghana with me had died. I really feel that I’m alive by the grace of God.

That was the end of my attempt to travel.

Raphel: How were you treated by the authorities?

Adu: The Libyan authorities tortured us in detention. They killed our bodies, spirits and souls. I think even hell might be better than that place. From then on, all I wanted to do was return home. There were at least 150 of us in a cell for just 20 people. We had to sit and sleep in shifts because there wasn’t enough room. I was always afraid to fall over and get trampled on.

We received food and water only once a day, and some days we got nothing at all. There was just one toilet in our cell and it was covered in cockroaches and rats. Every day someone got injured in a fight but the soldiers never did anything to help. You wouldn’t even keep dogs in a place like that. They treated us worse than animals.

From then on, all I wanted to do was return home.

Raphel: I am very sorry to hear of this.

Adu: I survived to tell the story. But others died.

Raphel: How did you get back to Ghana?

Adu: After almost four months in detention, someone from the UN and IOM came to speak to us. They said they could help us to return home. I was sad that my travel plans had failed, but I would have gone anywhere just to leave that place. So, all the better that it was my own country.

Raphel: How did they help you return?

Adu: They took us to another facility where they checked our nationalities and basic information, and gave medicine to those who were unwell. Then they put us on a plane. It was my first time flying. When we arrived in Ghana, police and the immigration department took our fingerprints and photos before letting us go.

Raphel: How did you get back to your village?

Adu: I was relieved to leave Libya behind, but none of my original problems had gone away. IOM had told us they would help us to establish ourselves back home, but in the end, they only paid for the transportation to my village.. I am even worse off now than when I started, and I’m hiding from all the relatives who lent me money. I feel so much shame about my failure.

People sometimes taunt me on the street, and I find it painful when I hear of others who succeeded when I didn’t. I can’t afford to go back to farming, so my wife is supporting me and the kids through her trading work. Despite her earnings, we are drowning in debt. And all the while, foreign goods continue to enter the market.

I want to travel again, but I won’t go back through the desert. I heard that there are routes to China and Saudi Arabia, so I’m looking for a loan to pay for the journey.

Explore the series:

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[1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/beyond-trafficking-and-slavery/migrants-returned-to-ghana-say-they-cant-afford-to-stay-libya-italy-iom-un/

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