“People can mislead you,” says Andemariam. “I talked to a Sudanese guy about my plans — he was working as a driver like me. He advised me to go to Libya, because of the job opportunities there.”
Andemariam is an Eritrean refugee in his early 40s, although he appears to be much older. He is frail and walks in small paces with a distinct tremor. He is not well, and hasn’t been ever since his arrival in Europe nearly a year ago. Europe, a destination he had not intended. A journey he had not planned for. At the time of this interview he was living at a refugee center in Munich, Germany.
Andemariam had been living and working in Sudan for over a decade when he was duped into taking the journey to Libya, where he’d been told there would be better employment opportunities.
“Once we were in the hands of the Libyans, we were imprisoned,” he says. “They beat us every evening to get us to transfer money.”
“We couldn’t take shower. We got skin diseases and our skin was itching,” he says, recounting the conditions of his month long stay in prison."