Meet Ali

Meet Ali.

31 years old and from Dakar, Senegal.

Ali did not want his face shown in any photos.

To reach Italy he crossed five countries: Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and the most dangerous of all, Libya.

His journey took over four years, leaving Senegal in August 2012.

From Senegal, it took him about six days to arrive in Agadez, Niger, where he stayed until departing for the desert.

Ali crossed the Sahara desert in the back of a pickup truck with about 40 people, all men. It was very hot and although each passenger had about five liters of water for the duration, the trip took six days, a dangerously low volume of water for such a long period of time. All luckily survived the crossing.

He reached Sabha, Libya, where he remained for about three months while working at a storefront to earn money.

He was later captured and held at a prison in Mizdah, a city about 180 kilometers south of Tripoli. The details of his time in captivity are unknown. However, upon capture his phone and money were taken. There was little to eat, maybe a bit of rice, and still that, not everyday.

After two months a man on the outside approached him for work and brought him away to Tripoli. He ultimately stayed in Tripoli for about three-and-a-half years, first working as a security guard for an Italian family in the city, then at “Latino," a fast-food restaurant in the city. In each case, he lived onsite, either with the family he was guarding, or in quarters next to the restaurant. He says he was treated well, and had a normal supply of food and water.

When his work ended and he was unable to find another job, he moved onward to Sabratha, a final step closer to crossing the sea to Europe. He lived at the seaside camp for three months. It was a difficult time, sleeping on the ground with no mattress or shelter over his head.

Ali crossed the Mediterranean Sea in a rubber dingy with 100 people, including children and women at 4:00 a.m. in late summer 2016. Everybody was afraid to make the crossing, “Yeah, of course!” he was emphatic.

All onboard survived. Ali’s boat was rescued by Italians (possibly the Guardia Costiera) and landed in Calabria, the southernmost region of Italy before Sicily, on 2 September 2016. He is living and working, selling bracelets to tourists on the street, in Rome, Italy now, where we recorded this story on 14 May 2018.

Ali is an amazing human being.