10 00 14

There are around ten of them on this plateau.

Ten migrants some of whom have come from Ethiopia and others from a village further south in Somalia.

At the time I meet them in their journey, they have already traveled hundreds of kilometers, fleeing war or poverty. Their goal is Bossasso, at the end of the desert, at the end of this road.

 

Bossasso is a city, a port from which they are going to try to leave Somalia, to embark on a sea journey and, if all goes well, to reach Yemen. Once there, they will be safe and they hope to be able to work.

 

I've been here for three weeks and I have been trying to film the journey of the migrants. I want to try to show what happens here, in this desert, and to also show the tragedies further down the line which cast a dark shadow on the sea.

 

10 01 19

How was the trip?

Pretty good, we were always able to find trucks or cars willing to take us. We didn't have any major trouble.

Why did you leave your country?

We couldn't find any means of survival. We have no more money.

 

10 02 01

There's a continual wave of arriving refugees all during autumn and winter when the sea is calm, with many fewer the rest of the year when the wind blows over the Gulf of Aden, making the crossing too dangerous.

The refugees arrive to find themselves in a chaotic city, resembling a transit camp.

 

Their first view of it is a street. A long street where the money changers are waiting. There are dozens of them.

 

This is where the migrants exchange their packets of Ethiopian birrhs and Somali shillings for money they can use everywhere-usually American dollars.

 

10 02 51

The refugees come from all the eastern part of the continent. But Bossasso, which is close to the Horn of Africa, is the main way station for these illegal migrants headed for the Arabian coasts.

 

Twenty-five thousand people survive in these shacks made of cardboard and diverse recuperated material. And their number is continually increasing as a result of the wars tearing apart Somalia or the economic crises which have forced the poorest Ethiopians to leave their country.

 

Most often, the migrants have no more money by the time they arrive here, in any case not enough to pay what the smugglers ask to cross the Gulf of Aden. So they work here for a few days, a few months and some of them-though this is rare-never leave.

 

10 03 57

 

Life is hard. Hygienic problems, climate problems. Even before having to confront the Gulf storms, the migrants have to confront the very frequent sand storms here.

 

10 04 33

And one has to eat.

Vegetables are scarce, as is meat.

 

10 04 44

Impossible to farm or to raise cattle. They have to buy everything at the inflated prices. But international aid organizations provide help and distribute food.

 

10 05 07

Unhappily for them, Ethiopians don't like fish. However there is fish-tons of it. The waters around Bossasso are full of fish. But few people benefit from it.

 

10 05 38

The refugees rent the location of their shacks from private owners, and they have to pay for everything, even the toilets. The showers. There's no running water in these ones, but only a small five-liter water containers.

 

10 05 58

A hard life, a troubled life, which they bear because they have only one idea in their minds-to leave. Without identity papers, without money, and on a terribly risky journey-but leave! Flee Somalia!

 

10 06 09

Woman in red

I have to leave, I have to get going.

To go where?

I don't care. To any country.

It's not good here?

It's unhygienic here, there's no work, there's nothing and life here is bad.

 

10 06 33

Young man wearing a checked white shirt.

Here, if you don't belong to a clan, it's difficult.

The problem is not so much where you go, it's mostly not to stay here.

Whether you come from Ethiopia or Mogadiscio in Somalia, for the people here it's the same. If you come from the south, no matter what your nationality, they treat you the same way. If you aren't from this region, you should leave. You aren't wanted.

 

10 07 07

Fatouma

How old are you?

18. I'm telling you the truth, I'm 18.

 

Why did you come here?

I came here to go on to Yemen and work there, because I absolutely want to work. Why do you think I would choose exile? It's to be able to work! Tell him that!

 

10 07 38

You too you want to go to Yemen? (addressed to another young woman).

Yes!

He wants to know why I want to go to Yemen, it's the same reason, to work.

 

10 07 54

In order to get money for their crossing, the migrants look for work at the port. Bossasso has developed a lot in the past years. The city has benefited from the war which destroyed Mogadiscio, the Somali capital. Its port has become the most important one in the country. Every day thousands of sheep, goats and cows flow through the streets like a flooded river to gather at the gates of the port.

 

Several million head of cattle cross these strictly guarded gates every year for transport to Yemen. Foreigners are not welcome here. I was often turned away until one day I was able to get authorization to approach the quays. Everything is loaded and unloaded by hand. Bossasso needs thousands of workers. And in this city without police, the port is an island of calm and safety. I found a guide, a Somali who lived a long time in the United States.

 

10 10 31

Insecurity is the curse of the city.

The Somalis are all armed but the Ethiopian migrants don't have to right to bear arms. I rented the services of a bodyguard. His name is Omar, he costs me $20 a day and he never leaves my side. He's proud and satisfied with himself and is happy to pose. I stay in a hotel in the city center, a hotel reputed for being calm, and I am desperately seeking a contact with the smugglers but haven't been able to find one. I wait, I pass my time watching the street scenes. The little shoeshine boys or the men belonging to the clans who pass by.

 

After awhile I make the acquaintance of some of the main city figures, and especially, Mamhoud, the mullah of this district. I hope that through him, I will perhaps be able to make contact with the smugglers.

 

10 11 59

It's impossible to walk through the city at night, even with a bodyguard. It's too dangerous.

 

I have met a Tunisian married to a Somali, Leyla. Leyla knows all the stories of this city, even those which send shivers down one's back, and which reveal what is awaiting the migrants.

 

10 12 17

It's the story of someone who took some people who wanted to leave for Yemen. Each of them had to pay $50. That was the price of the voyage. And then, in the middle of the trip, perhaps he changed his mind or something, I don't know. He took the women's jewelry and the men's watches, and he threw the people into the sea.

 

He had the right of life and death over his passengers?

 

Of course. You arrive. There's no police. No one is going to come. There are only the people of your clan, if you have a clan here. If you don't, there's no police.

 

10 13 21

I found this child after the tragedy. Twelve people, Ethiopians and Somalis, fought each other. There was a fight which ended badly. I don't know why. The child told us all of this but three days later, he became mute. He's a young kid, a child who shouldn't have been on that boat and seen that kind of thing. But he saw it and he saw his whole family being killed. How can you imagine he could be OK today? In fact, he hasn't spoken a word now for three months. The doctors say that he will get over it but I doubt it myself. I don't see how he will be able to get better.

 

Yet there is a governor in Bossasso. The governor of the Bari region to which the city belongs.

 

10 16 06

However, right in view of the port, a traffickers' boat, equipped for the transport of human beings, is anchored right next to a coastguard boat.

 

This shows that the authorities and the clan chiefs don't really try to stop the crossings. No doubt because they profit from them.

 

The international organizations, and first among them the United Nations-concerned about the refugee situation in Bossasso and by the long stretch of ocean between here and Yemen-have organized visits here to take stock of the situation. They have met the migrants waiting to embark and have urged them not to attempt the voyage. These organizations offer twelve euros to any of the refugees who will accept to return home. Meetings are organized in the refugee camps to try to convince them.

 

10 16 51 (Betsy)

The persons here present can help you, they can transmit your message to the higher authorities. You can speak freely.

Who are those who want to make the journey? Raise your hands!

 

Man with a grey polo shirt

We all want to leave this place.

 

They want to know why you left Ethiopia? Would someone like to speak?

 

Man in blue

There are some Ethiopians who would like to return home but they have no other choice but to go to Yemen.

 

Is the aid not enough?

 

Man in blue, nervous

Do you know Ethiopia? Have you ever lived there? What can you do with twelve euros?

 

Man in blue shirt

As for me, when I arrived here, I wanted to go to Yemen, I almost went twice. But when I realized that we would be beaten and sometimes thrown into the sea, I decided to return to my country. Everyone knows what happens. We know we can't make the crossing without suffering. People are beaten and everything they have is stolen.

 

Betsy

Have you listened to what he has said? Have you heard how dangerous it is? You've heard all this and you still want to go there?

 

Man with small hat

We all love our country and we all love our family, but we don't have any choice. We have all seen our brothers and sisters die at sea, but in spite of that, we want to cross it.

 

Man in grey polo shirt

Today I have 30 euros and it's not enough to return to Ethiopia but it's almost enough to cross over to Yemen. If I die during the trip, I die, too bad. But if I manage to cross to Yemen, I can earn money and return to my country one day. And I prefer to take the risk to cross in order to one day get back to my family.

 

So the UN, along with the authorities of the High Commission for Refugees, knows then what is happening here.

 

For the moment, from a purely humanitarian point of view, we can help the people who are blocked here to return to Ethiopia or to return to their region of origin. That's the first action we can accomplish. But in addition we have encouraged the Puntland authorities in the north of Somalia to undertake a dialogue with the neighboring countries, Ethiopia and Yemen, in order to find a solution together to this problem of economic immigration.

 

How do you know that there really have been dozens of deaths?

 

We have received innumerable accounts from illegal migrants who have crossed from Bossasso to Yemen who have told us the story of what happens when the boats are over-crowded. The boat owners suddenly decide to get rid of ten, twenty or thirty people in pushing them into the sea. In one year, we've recorded 1700 deaths.

 

10 20 07

1700 deaths!

In response to such a large number of deaths, the IOM (International Organization for Migration), organization mandated by the UN, guarantees a sort of airlift which enables refugees who desire it to return to their countries. The refugees are given a little money and must promise not to return. The air transport is handled by a company using old Russian planes. An old airplane flown by Russian pilots who are not all that young either.

 

10 21 33

I finally make contact with the smugglers. The contact was thanks to Leyla's husband, my Tunisian friend.

 

After several days of waiting, they come to get me at the hotel and take me to a sort of closed courtyard hidden from sight at the edge of the city. I have given them $400 and have promised to give them another $400 if I arrive alive in Yemen.

 

I remained at their disposal for almost 24 hours. Fed and watched by this woman who lived there in her improbable shack, overheated by the wretched sun.

 

The smugglers came back during the night and we traveled about fifty kilometers, direction the tip of Africa, so they tell me, supposedly to avoid being controlled by soldiers.

 

10 22 32

In the morning they left me near this sort of cave overlooking the sea.

 

A dozen or so people, mostly Somalis, were waiting there. They weren't migrants but merchants hoping to do business with the men and women who at that very moment were hiding in the mountains before embarking on the smugglers' boats at dusk.

 

We still had to kill time, gazing out at the landscape or at this cadaver of a giant tortoise which ran aground just here in front of our encampment.

 

Everyone was eating or as the saying goes "chewing" the khat, a euphoriant plant consumed by the inhabitants of this part of the world. In the afternoon, a few women came to congregate together on the beach and like me, they waited.

 

10 24 06

The migrants arrived during the night. The smugglers forbid me to film them and I didn't try it in order to be sure of leaving on the boat. We embarked around two or three in the morning after the smugglers had taken e the rest of my money from me. However to my great surprise, they left me a few dollars to get along with in Yemen, if I made it there.

 

10 24 59

Here then is this incredible vision that the world refuses to acknowledge.

 

Two boats left at the same time. They were both the same. Both of them with a transport cover to hide the passengers from the ships we would pass.

 

There were 128 of us on board a boat a little more than 10 meters long. There were people in the hold, near the engine, and under the bow from where I am filming. It is suffocating for those people.

 

10 25 39

I hunch myself up in the bow.

 

10 25 51

At the beginning of the journey, the smugglers forbid me to bring out my camera. Then they changed their minds and let me take some photos three different times. They made me understand that they would throw me into the sea if I directed the lens in their direction. It will be impossible for me to film them while they are beating the passengers, which they will do for hours. They beat them in order to diminish them physically and psychologically because the eight or ten-man crew has to assure the docility of 120 passengers, often stronger than them.

 

10 26 43

There are eight men in the crew that I will not be filming. If they are arrested, they risk 15 years in prison in Yemen, and death if a passenger dies during the trip, which is almost always the case.

 

Most of the passengers are at sea for the first time. Nearly all of them vomit in sacks or onto one another.

 

10 30 28

During the night I hear cries but I never learn the reason for them.

 

Second day of the journey

This man in blue is a sort of Kapo. He's a passenger whom the smugglers have ordered to beat his comrades.

 

The smugglers get lost. I have a GPS with me. So I am the one who shows them the correct route.

 

At the beginning they were relatively conciliatory. But now they force me to remain seated, not to move anymore.

 

Hours pass. There's beginning to be a shortage of water.

 

10 31 59

I've been able to film the women crowded in the back under the helm. By chance, there are no children. I learn later that there are children in the boat which is sailing along with us.

 

10 32 22

The smugglers are less suspicious of my camera.

 

10 33 49

This mad laughter is that of one of the smugglers amused by the sight.

 

10 34 27

I'm feeling profoundly sick and disgusted. I even feel a desire to jump into the water to get away from the torture I am witnessing.

 

10 35 07

Tonight, very near the coast, the smugglers violently force us to jump into the water. Most of the passengers don't know how to swim. By luck, the shore is nearby and this time, no one drowns. I was unable to film this scene, having myself been brutally pushed into the water.

 

By an almost extraordinary hazard, a television team is at the very same moment on the Yemenite shore. The team sees the passengers appear and it's this team which will record the end of the journey.

 

10 35 46

My name is Ginny, Ginny Hill. I'm English, and I came here with Marie Laure Bagiolini, a Swiss director. We've been here ten days and we are trying to film the journey of the migrants who arrive in Yemen. We decided to sleep in the huts near the beach so as to be here the very moment they arrived on land. We've been waiting night and day for a week. We have a military escort which the Yemenite authorities insisted upon. It was these soldiers who told us tonight that a hundred or so castaways had just arrived.

 

Marie-Laure can film at night, almost without light, but with this method, the people's eyes seem phosphorescent.

 

Man in the sand

I am tired. Leave me alone. I don't need anything. I don't want any trouble.

I come from Ethiopia. As soon as I arrived, I went to sleep here. I've been traveling for three days.

 

How much did you pay?

 

I paid $40. The smugglers wanted more. They threatened to kill us.

 

How long since you've eaten?

 

I haven't eaten for three days.

 

Are you thirsty or hungry?

 

Did they throw you into the water in the middle of the sea or near the shore?

 

Near the shore. I could almost put my feet down.

 

We were attached to one another in the boat but I was able to untie the ropes when they threw us into the sea.

 

10 41 26

There was a Frenchman on the crossing.

 

Who was this Frenchman?

 

I don't know. No doubt a journalist. In any case, the smugglers stole $500 from him and he was also beaten. And then, there were some deaths. The people were beaten and thrown into the sea if they didn't do what the smugglers told them. There were also women on board.

 

10 42 36

 

10 45 35

We experienced so many terrible things that I don't know which to tell about. These smugglers were scumbags. They could kill you and even if you slightly moved, the blows rained down on you. On your head, on your eyes, everywhere. If you opened your mouth, blows rained down on you and if you said you were Ethiopian they would hurt you even worse. We were thrown overboard, ten by ten, while being mercilessly beaten. We asked the smugglers to give us food and water in saying to them, "Have pity, we are human beings, Muslims, like you." And they answered that it wasn't their problem, that they had neither God neither religion and that they didn't give a damn.

 

Another man

When you no longer have a house, or work or anything to survive, why stay when life is so hard? I have a wife and children. When you don't have anything with which to live decently and when the government is corrupt, you have to leave.

 

10 47 19

I didn't meet Ginny and her colleague. The smugglers had told me that as soon as the passengers arrived on shore, they would steal from me or kill me. So I remained apart. I was imprisoned by the Yemenite police for having illegally entered the country. And I wasn't able to see them.

 

Ginny and Marie-Laure made the film for Channel Four, an English television station. Ginny returned to Yemen where she is still working as a free-lance journalist. As for Marie-Laure, she works for Swiss television.

 

As for me, I was transferred to a police center a hundred kilometers from there and then to Sanaa to the immigration prison before being freed thanks to the intervention of the French consular services. That's where this photo was taken.

 

As for the refugees, I met them in Sanaa, the capital of Yemen. Some of them were doing small jobs in the streets of the city. Most of the Somalis had regrouped in the camps near Aden, in the southern part of the country. They are recognized as political refugees and can remain on Yemenite territory.

 

The others-the Ethiopians-have to continue the journey toward Arabia or must go into hiding. If they are arrested, they are returned to Ethiopia.

 

10 49 35

The flow of refugees, the damned who must do business with the smugglers, continues as endless as ever

 

One still dies today beaten to death in the Gulf of Aden.