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Yancouba Badji, painter, has experienced sea crossings and mistreatment in Libya. For Brut, he tells.
“Crossing the Mediterranean is terrifying… So much so that you can’t say everything in front of the cameras“
Yancouba felt death. Crammed into boats with hundreds of people, he repeatedly tried to cross the Mediterranean Sea where he risked his life. He is a painter, he lives in Senegal, in Casamance. For 17 years he lived in The Gambia under the dictatorship of Yahya Jammeh. He was there”odd jobs“to feed his family in Senegal until the day he had to leave the country.”I no longer had a choice, but really no more choice, the living conditions are not favorable“, he says. Yancouba then arrived in Libya where he was a slave there. “I have never been in prison in my life, but in Libya I have been in prison… Once, twice, three times. In Libya, I saw young girls prostituting themselves to have food, just for a baguette“, he breathes.
These are bitter memories that haunt Yancouba: “People were sold like hotcakes. I’ve seen people starve“, he recalls. According to him, this passage through Libya is a violation of human rights. Yancouba stayed almost a year in Libya and tried several times to reach Italy. In vain. “Each time, we were picked up and piled into plastic boats, we were piled up like sardine cans“, he says.
After this ordeal, Yancouba encourages young people to wait for governments to act and provide answers. According to him, the sea crossings he has experienced are not a solution. “I think everyone has the right to be able to travel in good conditions“, he concludes.