DOCUMENTS and LETTERS
12/11/2021
TO POPE FRANCIS AND ALL BISHOPS OF THE CHURCH
Your Holiness,
We entrusted this letter to our brother Don Mattia of Mediterranea saving humans to forward it to you.
We are still the refugees and asylum seekers who have been abandoned & exposed to the most drastic hazardous circumstances since the 2nd of October.
We appreciate your response to our previous letter which dates back to the 13th October in which you expressed your closeness with us in the struggle for life. However, regardless of your calls on the authorities and heads of states not to return people intercepted on the sea to countries where they are exposed to human rights violation, torture, arbitrary detentions, extortion and life threatening circles, like Libya; still we see that the frontex and the Libyan coast guards are still bringing people back to Libya and detaining them in concentration camps where they are enslaved.
We are addressing especially to Europe and Italy to get their help because many of us have been in detention camps, where we suffered unimaginable horrors, as a result of being caught by the so-called Libyan Coast Guard at sea, and we know that Italy setup and finances these push-backs and Frontex often cooperates for them.
For refugees like us who were victimized last month following the Gargaresh raids, life is no more on our side, we have lost hope, we continue to feel alone and sink into despair. The UNHCR says they cannot protect us / guarantee our safety once back in the Libyan communities and cannot evacuate us also, the Libyan government is not looking at us as humans, we are frequently arbitrarily detained and summed up as criminals while in reality we are war victims fleeing our countries of origins.
We are once again victims of political games as UNHCR makes propagandas and publicities about helping us. What matters to them is the reputation of their organization, they are not doing so much to confront the Libyan government to protect us and our rights to life. We are served with racism and hatred from the Libyan government and the UNHCR in Libya, where then, our rights are usurped and violated.
We have been abandoned by the African Union, we wrote letters to them, shared our bleeding voices on radio and television channels calling for their utmost presence to get us out of this hell where our women and children have no access to life's necessities. We are dying every single day with a single dream of being protected and brought to safety, where we can live a dignified life in a humanly position.
We extend our calls on you again to keep your closeness with us, talk to the authorities, humanitarian corridors and states which can receive us from this earthly hell that we have been subjected to. 43 days in the street without shelters, toilets, proper food and drinking water, exposed to rain and cold wasn't and isn't our wish/will, but we have been hit so hard and with the calculation of the repeated circles of violence, that each one of us have been subjected to, and subdued to pass through, we do not know where to go, the Libyan society is not willing to receive us as humans again, we have been bleeding and we do not want to bleed more than these, with several lives of our innocent brothers lost to this heinous and barbaric act of racism.
You remain our only hope, please help us 😭😭😭😭 these are the tears of all of us, children, women and meek men. We may not have the right to choose where to die but please we do not want to die here in Libya.