Many Nigerians still entertained the belief that there lies a Golden Fleece somewhere outside their country; they spend their savings to embark on the trip and many always return with a broken heart and the need to start afresh. In this report by Michael Olukayode, he reeled out the experiences of some of the 182 migrants to Libya assisted back to their homeland by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM)
For years, Libya has occupied a complicated place in the imagination of many young Nigerians.
For some, it is seen as a land of opportunity, a place where hard work can provide an escape from poverty and unemployment. For others, it is merely a transit point on the dangerous route to Europe.
But for many of the Nigerians recently evacuated from Libya, the country became a place where dreams collided with a brutal reality of exploitation, loss, fear and survival.
Behind every returnee stepping off an evacuation flight is a story that rarely makes it into official statistics.
Some survived the Sahara Desert.
Some were trafficked by people they trusted.
Others lost family members while stranded abroad.
Many returned carrying physical and emotional scars that may never fully heal.
A Journey into the Unknown
One young woman thought she was travelling to Egypt.
The opportunity came through people she trusted.
“We were told that we were going to Cairo,” she recalled. “Unfortunately, we found ourselves in Libya.”
Another woman believed she was going on a vacation with a man who knew her family and had won their confidence.
“He knew my mother and told her he wanted to take me abroad,” she said.
Instead of a holiday, she found herself moving through unfamiliar territories, from remote bushes to the vast Sahara Desert.
“One moment I was in the bush, then in the desert,” she recalled. “Every time I asked questions, people would only tell me where I was, not why I was there.”
A third returnee, who was only 17 years old when she left Nigeria in 2019, was convinced by a family acquaintance who promised that she would work briefly before becoming financially independent.
“She told my mum that when we got there, we would work for some time to pay our sponsors and after that we could do any job we wanted,” she said.
None of them knew they were stepping into years of hardship.
Four Days of Hunger, One Week of Death
For many migrants, the Sahara Desert remains the most terrifying part of the journey.
One woman described spending four days crossing the desert with almost no food or water.
“We drank from the same water used by animals, including camels,” she said.
Sometimes even that was unavailable.
“I ate sand just to reduce the hunger in my stomach.”
Another returnee recalled an even more horrifying experience.
Her group became stranded in the desert for days.
“There was no water,” she said. “We drank our urine to survive.”
As the days passed, people began to die.
“Seven people died,” she recalled. “They left the bodies there.”
For an entire week, survivors remained trapped beside the corpses.
“We were seeing them every day for one week.”
The dead could not be buried.
The living could not leave.
“We could not move because that was where the driver was supposed to find us.”
For many, those images remain impossible to forget.
Trapped by Debt and Fear
Upon arrival in Libya, many migrants discovered they owed debts to sponsors who had arranged their transportation.
One woman said she was informed that she had to work for a year to repay the cost of bringing her into the country.
“I was angry because nobody asked for my permission,” she said. “I kept thinking, ‘I am somebody’s child.’”
Another spent months working as a domestic servant under difficult conditions.
She believed freedom was near after repaying most of her debt.
“After I paid for ten months, only two months remained,” she said.
Then she overheard plans to transfer her to another employer for payment.
“I heard they wanted to sell me again.”
When she resisted, violence followed.
“Nine people beat me,” she recalled. “They injured my eye.”
For others, fear was maintained through threats of arrest and detention.
“I told him I wanted to go back,” another woman said. “He told me it was not possible unless I paid back all the transport money.”
Communication with family members was often restricted.
“They would not give me a phone because they knew my family would find me.”
The Cost of Survival
Many migrants ended up performing jobs they had never agreed to do.
Some worked as housemaids.
Others cleaned homes and cared for families under gruelling conditions.
One returnee spent months doing physically demanding domestic labour for foreign families.
“The work damaged my body,” she said. “Even today I cannot sit comfortably because of the pain in my back.”
She eventually became seriously ill.
“By the ninth month, I was getting weaker and weaker.”
Others described months of work without pay.
“There were times I worked for months and received no salary,” one woman said. “Whenever I asked for my money, they threatened me with arrest.”
Yet despite the hardship, some migrants managed to establish livelihoods.
One man who arrived in Libya shortly after completing secondary school spent nine years working at a car wash.
“The job really paid me,” he said.
But even he warned that life there was far from easy.
“Libya is not easy. It depends on who carries you there.”
Grief Across Borders
Perhaps the deepest wounds were not physical.
They were emotional.
One woman learned years later that her mother had died shortly after she arrived in Libya.
Nobody told her at the time.
“What hurt me most was learning that my mother died shortly after I arrived in Benghazi,” she said.
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The loss devastated her.
Within a short period, she also lost a cousin and an elder sister.
“I lost my mother, my cousin and my eldest sister.”
The grief was compounded by what she heard from relatives.
“People told me my mother was calling my name before she died.”
The statement still haunts her.
“The greatest regret of my life is losing my mother while I was away.”
Back home, her family was falling apart.
One sister disappeared nearly three years ago and has never been found.
Another is stranded in Burkina Faso trying to find her way back to Nigeria.
“My family scattered after my mother’s death,” she said.
Living Under Constant Fear
Even migrants who found work described lives overshadowed by insecurity.
One woman said police raids were a constant threat.
“You could be sitting quietly in your house when police would raid the place and arrest people.”
Others were arrested on the streets or at their workplaces.
Another migrant described repeated evictions.
“We faced a lot of challenges.”
Sometimes there was nowhere to sleep.
“We slept on the street and sometimes inside cars with our child.”
Savings could disappear overnight.
“They would enter the house, break the door and carry your properties,” she said.
“There was nothing you could do.”
Finding a Way Home
For many migrants, the possibility of returning home seemed impossible.
One returnee only learned about assisted return programmes through a friend.
“I had never heard about it before.”
Her first attempt to leave failed.
Employers and sponsors allegedly frustrated her plans.
Eventually, she escaped, registered again and secured approval to return.
Others simply reached a breaking point.
For one woman, years of physical labour had left her body unable to continue.
“My ankles hurt constantly. My back is damaged.”
For another, the desire to see family again outweighed everything else.
After nine years abroad, he decided it was time to return.
“I wanted to reunite with my family.”
Home, But Not Unchanged
Today, many of the returnees are relieved simply to be back in Nigeria.
“I am very happy,” one woman said.
Another expressed gratitude to those who helped facilitate her return.
“What I thought was that they would just bring us back and leave us.”
Instead, she said, assistance programmes helped restore her dignity.
“They are helping us reconnect and reminding us that we were once humans.”
But returning home does not erase the memories.
The images of bodies abandoned in the desert.
The hunger that drove people to drink urine and eat sand.
The years spent trapped in debt.
The mothers who died while their children were stranded abroad.
The families broken apart by migration.
The scars remain.
As more Nigerians return from Libya, their testimonies offer a powerful warning to young people considering irregular migration routes.
The stories that circulate in communities often focus on success.
The stories told by returnees reveal another reality.
A reality where survival can mean drinking urine in the desert.
Where freedom can be bought and sold.
Where a search for opportunity can become a struggle simply to stay alive.
One returnee summed it up in a few words that capture the lessons of years spent far from home.
“No dream is worth losing your freedom.”
