Joseph's story

This is testimony from Joseph, an asylum seeker from Nigeria, onboard the charity rescue ship the Ocean Viking. Joseph along with over a hundred other people was rescued from an unseweaworthy rubber boat headed for Europe from Libya. Several days later, he sat down to record his story, leaving from Nigeria, across the desert to Libya and onto that rubber boat headed North. 

He describes suffering extortion, robbery, detention, forced labour and other abuses in Libya. His story is very indicative of the treatment African migrants experience in Libya. He is now in the Italian asylum system. The audio has been lightly edited to remove identifying details. 

Recorded by Frey Lindsay.

Part of the Migration Sounds project, the world’s first collection of the sounds of human migration. 

For more information and to explore the project, see https://www.citiesandmemory.com/migration