A teenager, who found herself in Tripoli, Libya, narrates her tortuous journey through the Sahara Desert, and how some desperate groups recruit young Nigerian girls for prostitution in the North African country to Comfort OseghaleBola, a 15-year-old Senior Secondary School pupil in Ikorodu, Lagos, has had her world turned around in one month without preparing for it. While her peers were taking summer classes last August, she was one of several girls who were being transported in trucks across the Sahara Desert to Libya. She is, however, lucky to still be alive to tell the story.As a pupil in boarding, Bola spends nearly all of her time at school. “I am on a scholarship; I have been on it since I was in Primary Four,” she says. The only child of divorced parents, she spends most of her holidays either at the boarding house or the home of her school proprietor, who lives within the school premises. Last August while the school session drew to a close, and her peers made plans for holiday lessons, Bola decided to take up a holiday job.“I told my mum that I wanted to get a job during the holidays; I wanted save some money before I gain admission into the university. My mum told me her pastor assists the members with jobs. I had to wait though for my aunt, Lola, who was at Ilesa, then trying to get admission into the university because my mother arranged that the pastor would help the two of us to get holiday jobs. A few days later, Lola joined Bola in Lagos and the girls went to Ikorodu to meet the pastor.A woman known to everyone as Mama Blessing showed up moments later. She is the pastor’s friend. And with this set-up, the journey of these girls to Tripoli, Libya, began. The prophet and Mama Blessing, it turned out, only tricked people to recruit young girls for a prostitution ring in the North African country.But in an interview with SATURDAY PUNCH at the office of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons, Ikeja, Lagos, where she is currently being detained, Mama Blessing claimed ignorance of the trafficking trade. “I am just a trader and sell foodstuffs at the market. Pastor knew that my daughter Blessing had come in from Libya and she asked me to assist Bola and Lola in finding jobs in Libya. All I did was to hand them over to my daughter,” she claimed.As Bola recalled, the girls were taken to the Ogolonto, Ikorodu, Lagos, residence of Mama Blessing from where they were to take off days later to Kano in company with one Ibrahim, a friend of Blessing, while Bola and Lola were oblivious that the journey to Libya had begun. The young girls were joined by two other girls, who came with Ibrahim. “Ibrahim kept making calls during the journey. It seemed he was receiving directions from someone,” Bola said. At Kano, the group was met by a Hausa man driving a Golf car; they were to continue the next phase of their journey with him. After a while, two motorcycles trailed the Golf car. “I was scared when I noticed them. It was not until we stopped that I realised that the cyclists were meant for us,” she added. After three trips, everyone was ferried across safely into Niger Republic by the motorcyclists. “The network signal on my phone changed to an Orange symbol and I then realised that we were in another country. We were kept in a hut and warned not to make any noise,” Bola said.Shortly after, Bola and her fellow travellers were joined by a group of boys and girls, who were being led by Blessing and her accomplice. It was a congregation of various Nigerian tribes and African nations. “There were Igbo, Bini, Ishan and Yoruba. There were also Ghanaians,” Bola recalled. A few days later, they moved again, this time by bus: at night. Describing this journey as terrifying, Bola said the group encountered rebels on the way. She said, “At a point, some Nigerien rebels were shooting at the bus and trying to stop, but the driver continued moving. I was told that if we stopped, we would be robbed and all the girls raped.”Eventually, the bus made it to Dirkou, where the girls spent a few more days with their traffickers, sequestered from prying eyes. “We moved again from Dirkou to Agadez in an open-air pick-up truck. We were loaded into the back of the truck like animals and had to sit tightly packed together,”she said. The journey was more horrifying than the last for Bola. The sun was so hot that when the travellers stopped for a brief rest, their shoes almost melted ontheir feet in the hot sand. The desert route was littered with the bones of animals and dead travellers who had gone before them. The ride was bumpy and rough. Once, the truck in which Bola was loaded with others, had an accident; it fell on its side and turned again on its head, emptying its human cargo on top of the corpses that littered the desert.“I lost consciousness while the other girls screamed. My clothes were pulled from me and they poured water on me before I revived. Meanwhile, our Arab driver started beating us. He was angry because he had warned us earlier not to make any noise. With the help of fellow travellers who were coming behind us in pick-ups, we were able to bring up the fallen truck,” she said.At Agadez, all the girls were interviewed separately, “It was during the interview I was told we were being taken to Libya for prostitution; I refused and told my interviewer there was no way I would become a prostitute, that I was still a virgin,” Bola said. Unknown to her, one Ade, a member of the ring, who interviewed her, had contacted Bola’s prospective master in Libya, named Gani with the news. “It was later I discovered that Gani had ordered Ade to do what he could to deflower me,” said the teenager, who alleged that Ade raped her a few days after the interview. “I bled profusely, it was terrible.” she lamented.Not long after this, the contingent started the journey to their final destination in Libya. “We were loaded into about 16 trailers, girls and boys from various countries and all the vehicles moved in a convoy. The journey was rough because of the rocks and sand along the road. At times, some of us would be thrown into the air with each bump,” she said, recalling a moment when a young girl fell off one of the trucks. “We had to scream and shout for the driver to stop because he couldn’t speak English. Eventually, he stopped and went to get her.” According to Bola, it took three days to get to Libya by road from Agadez. “I later learnt that the trailer Blessing boarded took about two weeks to get to Libya because it broke down on the way.
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