美国国家公共电台 NPR Migrants Captured In Libya Say They End Up Sold As Slaves

 

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

African migrants who pass through Libya to board smugglers' boats to Europe are being captured by militias², and some of them are being sold as slaves. NPR's Ruth Sherlock traveled to southern Tunisia recently and met migrants who managed to escape from Libya. They told her about their kidnappings and about the prisons where they were bought and sold. Here's the disturbing testimony³ of one of the men Ruth spoke⁴ with.

RUTH SHERLOCK, BYLINE⁵: As Boubaker Nassou (ph) speaks, it feels as though he's telling stories from a past century.

BOUBAKER NASSOU: They took us and sell us as slaves.

SHERLOCK: Nassou is slim, 30 years old and talks about the awful experiences he's gone through in this kind of matter-of-fact way. He's a migrant from Gambia and was crossing North Africa to try to reach Europe. But in Libya, the smuggler's car he was in was stopped at a militia¹ checkpoint.

NASSOU: They caught us on the road. They put us in the taxi, and the taxi was going straight to the prison where they sell people.

SHERLOCK: The prison where they sell people. At other times, Nassou calls it a slave market. The place was a large, dank room crammed⁶ full of African men and women. No one was allowed to shower. The air was putrid⁷. And all the while, Libyans would come to haggle⁸ with the guards. And what they were haggling⁹ over was the price of the prisoners.

NASSOU: This man would come and say, I need one person. They said this one is for $400 - 400 dinar. This one is for 500. This one is for 300, and this one is for 200. They sell like that.

SHERLOCK: Did this happen to you?

NASSOU: Yeah, it happens to me.

SHERLOCK: When? What happened?

NASSOU: Yeah, in 2016 - in 2016.

SHERLOCK: He was bought for the equivalent of $350.

You got time? Should we go sit over there maybe?

NASSOU: (Unintelligible).

SHERLOCK: We sit in the room of a shelter run by the Red Crescent aid group where Nassou now lives with other migrants who escaped Libya and have similar stories. In the chaos¹⁰ that's followed Libya's civil war, the trafficking of migrants has grown. As the United Nations and other rights groups have found, militias run detention¹¹ centers. These are places where migrants are often held until they compare ransom¹² or are sold and then resold. Nassou says it's become a business.

NASSOU: They will buy you, and then they'll buy you. They will increase the money so that they will have profit. You buy me for 200, you sell me for 1,000 or 500 so that you can make some profit out of it.

SHERLOCK: The Libyan who bought Nassou for the equivalent of $350 then sold him on to another militia at three times the price. Nassou doesn't remember the man's name. He was taught to call all Libyans mudir or boss in Arabic.

Who was this man?

NASSOU: We do call him mudir. Every Libyan is called mudir. Like, in English, we say boss man, boss man.

SHERLOCK: Nassou's worst memories come from a prison in the coastal¹³ town of Zawiya. It's known only as Saleh’s prison, named after the militia leader who runs it. In there, detainees die from beatings.

NASSOU: That kind of treatment kills so many of us. You do lie down - knew somebody before in the morning. Now, you've found that he's gone because of bad treatment.

SHERLOCK: He says Saleh's men would play these sick games, like making the women undress and forcing the male prisoners to stare or ordering prisoners to shoot each other. There were rapes¹⁴. Nassou survived there for seven months. When - finally - his name was called, it almost came as a relief. A man needed a painting job done.

NASSOU: One day, somebody was looking for a painter man, who can do painting. And that man - he paid the money and released me and took me to his room so that I can work for him.

SHERLOCK: Nassou was now sold into bonded¹⁵ labor¹⁶. He was told to paint the man's home.

And he didn't pay you?

NASSOU: No, he didn't pay me. That was the payment - to make me safe from the prison.

SHERLOCK: It took Nassou weeks to paint all of the rooms. When he'd finished, his master - as he still calls him - appeared to take pity on him and decided¹⁷ to let him go.

NASSOU: He gave me 10 dinar to buy cigarettes and some food.

SHERLOCK: And then he just left?

NASSOU: Yeah, he just left.

SHERLOCK: Nassou tried to lie low. He'd heard stories of Libyans roaming the streets in cars with guns in search of black men to sell back to Saleh's jail. One day, two Libyan men did approach him. He was barefoot, and one of the men surprised him by giving him his shoes. The other man offered to take him to another part of town, a safer place where other Africans lived.

NASSOU: One of his friends is there. He - that's what he tells me. You come here. I will take you where black people are living. So he take me in the car and - to rescue me to my fellow blacks - to drop me there.

SHERLOCK: One night, Nassou managed to get over the border to Tunisia, but he still thinks a lot about those he left behind. He calls them his brothers.

NASSOU: Yes, slave markets still - our brothers are in the prison. A lot of them are in the prison still now.

SHERLOCK: Sometimes he gets calls from people trying to find relatives trapped in Libya. He doesn't have words of comfort. Instead, he warns them Libya is terrible. Whatever you do, do not go. Ruth Sherlock, NPR News, Medenin, Tunisia.

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1 militia   

n.民兵，民兵组织

参考例句：

• First came the PLA men,then the people's militia.人民解放军走在前面，其次是民兵。
• There's a building guarded by the local militia at the corner of the street.街道拐角处有一幢由当地民兵团守卫的大楼。

2 militias   

n.民兵组织，民兵( militia的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The troops will not attempt to disarm the warring militias. 部队并不打算解除战斗中的民兵武装。 来自辞典例句
• The neighborhood was a battleground for Shiite and Sunni militias. 那里曾是什叶派和逊尼派武装分子的战场。 来自互联网

3 testimony   

n.证词；见证，证明

参考例句：

• The testimony given by him is dubious.他所作的证据是可疑的。
• He was called in to bear testimony to what the police officer said.他被传入为警官所说的话作证。

4 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

5 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

6 crammed   

adj.塞满的，挤满的；大口地吃；快速贪婪地吃v.把…塞满；填入；临时抱佛脚( cram的过去式)

参考例句：

• He crammed eight people into his car. 他往他的车里硬塞进八个人。
• All the shelves were crammed with books. 所有的架子上都堆满了书。

7 putrid   

adj.腐臭的；有毒的；已腐烂的；卑劣的

参考例句：

• To eat putrid food is liable to get sick.吃了腐败的食物容易生病。
• A putrid smell drove us from the room.一股腐臭的气味迫使我们离开这房间。

8 haggle   

vi.讨价还价，争论不休

参考例句：

• In many countries you have to haggle before you buy anything.在许多国家里买东西之前都得讨价还价。
• If you haggle over the price,they might give you discount.你讲讲价，他们可能会把价钱降低。

9 haggling   

v.讨价还价( haggle的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• I left him in the market haggling over the price of a shirt. 我扔下他自己在市场上就一件衬衫讨价还价。
• Some were haggling loudly with traders as they hawked their wares. 有些人正在大声同兜售货物的商贩讲价钱。 来自辞典例句

10 chaos   

n.混乱，无秩序

参考例句：

• After the failure of electricity supply the city was in chaos.停电后，城市一片混乱。
• The typhoon left chaos behind it.台风后一片混乱。

11 detention   

n.滞留，停留；拘留，扣留；(教育)留下

参考例句：

• He was kept in detention by the police.他被警察扣留了。
• He was in detention in connection with the bribery affair.他因与贿赂事件有牵连而被拘留了。

12 ransom   

n.赎金，赎身；v.赎回，解救

参考例句：

• We'd better arrange the ransom right away.我们最好马上把索取赎金的事安排好。
• The kidnappers exacted a ransom of 10000 from the family.绑架者向这家人家勒索10000英镑的赎金。

13 coastal   

adj.海岸的，沿海的，沿岸的

参考例句：

• The ocean waves are slowly eating away the coastal rocks.大海的波浪慢慢地侵蚀着岸边的岩石。
• This country will fortify the coastal areas.该国将加强沿海地区的防御。

14 rapes   

n.芸苔( rape的名词复数 )；强奸罪；强奸案；肆意损坏v.以暴力夺取，强夺( rape的第三人称单数 )；强奸

参考例句：

• The man who had committed several rapes was arrested. 那个犯了多起强奸案的男人被抓起来了。 来自辞典例句
• The incidence of reported rapes rose 0.8 percent. 美国联邦调查局还发布了两份特别报告。 来自互联网

15 bonded   

n.有担保的，保税的，粘合的

参考例句：

• The whisky was taken to bonded warehouses at Port Dundee.威士忌酒已送到邓迪港的保稅仓库。
• This adhesive must be applied to both surfaces which are to be bonded together.要粘接的两个面都必须涂上这种黏合剂。

16 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

17 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。