50 Sierra Leoneans stranded in Libya

Some fifty Sierra Leoneans are said to be stranded in the southwestern Libyan city of Sabha. They say they have been abandoned there by some “rogue” agents who had recruited them in Freetown in the hope of giving them construction and security work in the Libyan capital Tripoli, or in Japan, Chile or Haiti. Speaking to Politico from Libya, one of them Alimamy Bangura said their situation “is very serious” and that they needed the Sierra Leone “government to come to our rescue now [as] we are really suffering here”. Another one Abass said that they departed Freetown on 17 March 2013 and drove to Sabha through Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger from where they drove through “harsh desert conditions” before getting to Sabha” where they had been told that they needed to undergo a two-week orientation. He said they had also been promised that they would be issued with their visas there before being taken to their various workplaces. He described their present living condition as “very bad” saying they sleep in a ghetto-like place. Abass said that they had been promised jobs by a company called “Rebuildlibya.com” who collected their monies from them and ran away. 37 of them, including a woman, left in March, according to him, and they met up with thirteen others there. He said their contact in Freetown had refused to talk to them despite repeated calls. We are trying to get to the contact whom we cannot name now because we have not heard from him. Abass said their “recruitment” had not been done through the labour ministry. We tried to contact the Minister of Foreign Affairs on what government could do to bring back its stranded citizens but he would not pick the calls. We will keep trying to get his comment.