Book
My fourth time, we drowned : seeking refuge on the world's deadliest migration route
Publication Information
Brooklyn : Melville House, 2022.
Physical Description
xxviii, 419 pages : maps ; 24 cm
Summary
"The Western world has turned its back on migrants, leaving them to cope with one of the most devastating humanitarian crises in history. Reporter Sally Hayden was at home in London when she received a message on Facebook: "Hi sister Sally, we need your help." The sender identified himself as an Eritrean refugee who had been held in a Libyan detention center for months, locked in one big hall with hundreds of others. Now, the city around them was crumbling in a scrimmage between warring factions, and they remained stuck, defenseless, with only one remaining hope: contacting her. Hayden had inadvertently stumbled onto a human rights disaster of epic proportions. From this single message begins a staggering account of the migrant crisis across North Africa, in a groundbreaking work of investigative journalism. With unprecedented access to people currently inside Libyan detention centers, Hayden's book is based on interviews with hundreds of refugees and migrants who tried to reach Europe and found themselves stuck in Libya once the EU started funding interceptions in 2017. It is an intimate portrait of life for these detainees, as well as a condemnation of NGOs and the United Nations, whose abdication of international standards will echo throughout history. But most importantly, My Fourth Time, We Drowned shines a light on the resilience of humans: how refugees and migrants locked up for years fall in love, support each other through the hardest times, and carry out small acts of resistance in order to survive in a system that wants them to be silent and disappear." -- Provided by publisher.
Contents
- Prologue: This SIM card is our life
- A note
- Timeline of important events and relevant statistics
- Immigration statistics
- Where it ends and where it begins
- Sudan: through the desert
- Libya: the twenty-first century slave trade
- Ain Zara and Abu Salim: new life and new death
- Libya: escape to Hell
- Triq al Sikka: Burned alive
- Disunited nations
- Tunis: the last days of Rome
- Abu Salim: love finds a way
- Khoms Souq al Khamis: a market of human beings
- Siera Leone: the temple run and the left-behind women
- Brussels: Migration crisis "over"
- Triq al Sikka: Going underground
- Tripoli: war erupts again
- Qasr bin Ghashir and Zawiya: shots fired
- Zintan: Libya's "Guantanamo"
- UNHCR gathering and departure facility: the hotel
- Tajoura: War crimes and war slaves
- Rwanda: A new route to safety
- Tripoli: closing the gathering and departure facility
- The Mediterranean Sea: Fortress Europe
- Addis Ababa: smugglers on trial
- Paris and Berlin: Europe on the dock
- Europe: Home sweet home
- Epilogue: Luxembourg: Kaleb.