Expressive statement by David Yambio:
What is happening these days in Libya makes me bleed from wounds that I have endlessly endured, wounds I have tried to bandage, though they never seem to heal. I have lived this nightmare. I have fought against it. I have shouted until my voice cracked, protested until my body couldn’t stand, and risked my very existence to expose it. I have stood against the brutal treatment I endured, against the rape of Black women who were deemed unworthy of protection, against my own enslavement and the extortions that stripped me of even my right to breathe freely. I crossed the Mediterranean, believing that perhaps there was something beyond the horizon, justice, dignity, or at the very least, recognition. And yet, even in survival, there is no pause. My nights offer no refuge, my days no respite.
I have poured my soul into ensuring that Black people in Libya—migrants, refugees, the nameless and forgotten are not hunted, not tortured, not enslaved. But the horrors do not end. They mutate. They disguise themselves in treaties and policies, in diplomatic jargon and humanitarian hypocrisy. Every now and then, we are handed the illusion of progress, a few words of condemnation, a symbolic gesture but how long must we settle for illusions? How long must we endure the silence of the so-called civilized world?
What more is required of me? How much more must I give? Must I be broken into smaller and smaller pieces before anyone dares to ask why? Why do European citizens not hold their governments accountable? Why do they not question the deals signed in their name, the pacts that condemn Black People to rot in Libya’s concentration camps, the billions funneled into the hands of traffickers masquerading as border patrols? Meloni, Von der Leyen, the policymakers in Brussels what price must they pay for these murders? For this sanctioned slaughter of Black bodies? They convene in their halls of power, signing away the rights of people they have never seen, never met, never even thought of as fully human. They call it “migration management,” but what they have built is a network of suffering, an empire of human misery that stretches from the shores of Africa to the streets of Europe.
And what of the government in Tripoli? A government entangled in its servitude to European interests, poisoned by Arab anti-Blackness, wielding cruelty as both policy and pastime. They have become a willing instrument of oppression, a vulture feeding off the bodies of the desperate. And yet, my fury cannot even rest solely on them, for I must ask where are the African leaders? Those who share our blood, our history, our pain? I would name them, but they deserve no mention, for they too have blood on their hands. They have abandoned us to our fate, sold us for a seat at foreign tables, watched in silence as their sons and daughters drowned in the sea or wasted away in detention camps. Do they feel nothing? Do they think at all?
And what of you? The people of the world, the activists, the journalists, the so-called allies what will you do? Will you share this truth, or will you let it be buried beneath the weight of indifference? My mind is tormented, my soul exhausted, but tell me, have I committed some great crime by demanding that no Black human being be tortured, raped, or enslaved?
Humans of the world, will you make noise? Will you disturb your comfort to confront this atrocity? Or will you, too, pretend that Blackness is a crime, that migration is a death sentence, that these lives are not worth your breath?
The children hunted on the streets of Tripoli, Jenzour, Tajoura, Al-Madina Gadima, do you not see them? Do you not hear them? Do you not question your own moral and ethical responsibilities?
If there is any justice left in this world, let it begin with the truth. Let it begin with your refusal to be silent.
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