Chuks and Larry Elisabeth Otuya
Chuks and Larry Elisabeth Otuya, 33 and 27, with their twin daughters Mary and Mercy, 8 months, Ragusa, Sicily:
The couple come from Nigeria. Chuks worked in Libya for four years as a lorry mechanic. Until he was suddenly arrested in 2014 because his papers were allegedly invalid. The prison was hopelessly overcrowded, and after three days he and some 80 other prisoners were bundled into pick-up trucks and driven to the coast. »Go!« the policemen yelled at them, and herded them to the boats on the shore. – Chuks had never wanted to go to Europe. He had a job and was earning money. And he had read about the many people who had not survived crossing the Mediterranean. Moreover, his wife was four months pregnant. The policemen forced him to board one of the boats. Meanwhile, his wife did not know where he was. Eventually he was able to call her from Italy. She had thought he had abandoned her, pregnant. He had to explain to her that he had been forced onto a boat. Five months later, she was also sitting in a boat to join her husband – eight months pregnant. She, too, survived the crossing. She was rescued by Italian coast guards and taken straight to hospital, where she gave birth to twins shortly after. In the meantime, however, Chuks had been moved to a reception centre in Udine in northern Italy. He had to wait one month until he was granted permission to travel to her. After a two-day train journey, he was finally reunited with his wife in Sicily – and with his two new-born children.
I ask him what would have happened if he had refused to get into the boat. He looks at me. »They would have given me a gunshot,« is his succinct, clear answer.
Yes – they are seeing that more and more frequently, explains the Italian social worker Gina Missari, head of the family project where Chuks is living with his family. People who are no longer »needed« in Libya are shipped off on boats towards Europe. She calls them "target boats«. The Libyans are seeing what will happen if they pack everybody they want to get rid of onto boats. Europe will rescue them and take them in. They are the oldest boats in the worst condition. »We were on the sea for three days; the waves were getting higher and higher. They saved us at the last minute near Lampedusa,« Chuks tells me. He is a devout Catholic and convinced that his fate is determined by God. Chuks would like to move to another country, Germany or somewhere else in Europe. God will show him the way. The main thing is to find work, and that is where they will then live.