A 23-year-old Nigerian returnee, Endurance Daniel, has described the harrowing experience she endured while attempting to migrate to Libya, including drinking her own urine to survive in the desert, and witnessing fellow migrants die under extreme conditions.
Daniel, who recently returned to Nigeria with 182 other migrants through the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), said she travelled with 52 others in a single vehicle, and seven people died during the journey.
She revealed that she was deceived into migrating at the age of 17, lured by promises of employment and business opportunities in Libya. “We spent more than a month in the desert with no water. We drank our urine to survive, and eventually some of us had blood instead,” Daniel recounted. The dead were left in the desert, and survivors watched their bodies decompose.
Daniel said her mother’s friend convinced her family that Libya offered better prospects, assuring them she could repay a sponsor through domestic work and then pursue her own business. However, upon arrival in 2019, she discovered the reality differed dramatically.
“The only options for women migrants were domestic work or prostitution. There was nothing else,” she said. Attempts to return home were blocked by traffickers who demanded repayment of travel costs and withheld contact with her family.
Daniel described being subjected to threats, intimidation, and coercion, with traffickers using family communication as leverage. “I accepted because I desperately wanted to speak with my family. It had been months since I last heard from them,” she said.
The journey included severe dehydration, hunger, and harsh desert conditions. Surviving migrants were eventually sent to camps where they received meager food rations before being transferred to sponsors. She also reported that migrants were often hidden in vehicles to evade security and immigration inspections.
Despite the ordeal, Daniel expressed gratitude for her return and cautioned young Nigerians to verify migration opportunities before leaving the country. “People should not believe everything they are told. My experience was nothing like the promises made before I left,” she concluded.
