The EU’s deal with Libya is sentencing refugees to death | Sally Hayden

I am in daily contact with people in Libyan detention centres. Any hope that the country might be a safe haven has gone, leaving only death and despairHaftom, a 32-year-old Eritrean dentist, used to tell a joke that went like this: “God was watching the globe and saw Eritrea was green. ‘How did this country become so green,’ he wondered, and went to investigate. But when he got there he saw the green was overcrowded militias.”Of course this was black humour. Like tens of thousands of others, Haftom fled Eritrea, one of the most isolated dictatorships in the world. He wanted to get away from brutal leaders who controlled every aspect of his life, from his profession and his salary to where he could live and what he could speak about. Friends described him as a “quiet, smart” man, who had eventually despaired of any chance that things would get better. Continue reading…
Via: The EU’s deal with Libya is sentencing refugees to death | Sally Hayden