An Al Jazeera collection: Leaving two kids behind, a pregnant Sierra Leonean mom pins her hopes on crossing to Europe.
Tunis, Tunisia — Standing within the drizzle outdoors the Tunis workplace of the Worldwide Group for Migration, Saffiatu Mansaray is staring down at her swollen abdomen.
On the opposite aspect of the alley, her husband works alongside different undocumented folks, constructing a plastic-covered wood shelter for refugees whose keep in Tunis is continuous with no sign of ending.
The couple have come to Tunisia from Sierra Leone and are hoping to get to Europe. However the longer they continue to be caught right here, the extra anxious Saffiatu, 32, is rising about her being pregnant.
“I am seven months gone,” she says, one hand resting protectively on her stomach. “I have been here since February.”
Earlier than embarking on a journey she knew might be deadly, she left two kids in Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, with an aunt. The reminiscence continues to be contemporary in her thoughts.
Saffiatu and her husband have discovered different difficulties in Tunisia. They had been dwelling within the port metropolis of Sfax till a few months in the past when the police got here for them. She’s unsure when that was precisely.
“The police catch us and take us to the desert,” she says. “They will come again.”
That was the second time Saffiatu discovered herself on the Tunisian-Algerian border after crossing from Sierra Leone, which she left along with her husband in November.
This time, she, her husband and the others who had been herded onto a bus by the Tunisian safety providers in Sfax discovered themselves alone and susceptible to gangs of “bad boys” she says function within the forest close to Tunisia’s northern border with Algeria. These gangs prey on refugees, asylum seekers and migrants, stealing their telephones and any cash or valuables they’ve with them.
“We walked back by foot [from the Algerian border]. Some people die. Some people get sick,” she says with a passive shrug. She describes how the group was later intercepted on their journey by the police earlier than being returned to the border. “I got sick,” she says. “I had pains all over, under my stomach. This was three weeks ago. It was cold.”
Saffiatu’s mother and father nonetheless stay in Freetown. Her father, who’s 70, is just too frail to work in building any longer. Saffiatu says she want to ship a refund, however with no work obtainable to her or her husband in Tunis and a child on the way in which, there’s none to spare. “I sit over there and beg. Every day I beg. I will tell them, ‘Mon ami, ca va?’ [‘How are you, my friend?’] Some people give me one dinar, some two dinars [33 or 65 United States cents]. So for the day, I survive.”
On the opposite aspect of the alley, a tough shelter is starting to take form. The wooden has been salvaged from building websites and repurposed pallets and is being wrapped in thick black plastic that these dwelling within the chilly alley have pooled their meagre sources to purchase.
“If God grants me the wish, I will continue to Europe. There is no work for any of us here,” Saffiatu says. “Up until now, I see no doctor, no nurse, nothing. I just sit and hope.”
This text is the primary of a five-part collection of portraits of refugees from totally different nations, with numerous backgrounds, certain by shared fears and hopes as they enter 2024.
