𝑼𝑵𝑫𝑬𝑹𝑪𝑶𝑽𝑬𝑹: 𝑬𝒖𝒓𝒐𝒑𝒆 𝑻𝒉𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑺𝒂𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒂 𝑫𝒆𝒔𝒆𝒓𝒕 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑴𝒆𝒅𝒊𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒓𝒂𝒏𝒆𝒂𝒏 𝑺𝒆𝒂 (𝑰𝑰𝑰)

For 47 days, investigative journalist Fisayo Soyombo lived as a migrant, travelling from Kano in Nigeria through Zinder, Agadez and Dirkou in Niger, into Al Gatrun, Sabha and Tripoli in Libya, to reveal what Africans endure on the road to Europe.

The danger started early in the Sahara. Armed soldiers stopped his truck. He raised his hands in surrender. They searched him and seized his satellite tracker - the device his team used to follow his location every hour. He told them it was a power bank. From that moment, he lost contact with his newsroom and had to hide his phones to keep reporting.

Shortly after, his truck was stopped by desert bandits - four men with local guns shouting in the dark. After a long exchange with the traffickers, they were allowed to pass. At the next checkpoint, soldiers who acted like robbers searched small bags for expensive phones. When they were about to find his hidden phones and cash packed inside tea and milk sachets, his driver intervened and told them to take his money instead. They collected almost everything and left him with just 4 Dinars. That loss saved his evidence.

He arrived Al Gatrun in southern Libya around 5 a.m. on June 22. The driver dropped them in open desert with no shelter and drove off. To survive the scorching sun, Soyombo hid under an abandoned car. Others hid under broken trucks. When the driver returned, he attacked them for leaving the spot and moved them to another open space with only two small shrubs for shade.

By nightfall, his group scattered. Different connection men came to pick their own migrants. Only one man, Oumarou from Niger who spoke only Hausa, was left with him. His own connection man in Agadez, Alhaji Buzu, stopped answering calls.

In Al Gatrun, the risk of abduction grew. Two young men at a restaurant kept saying "taxi" and tried to arrange a car without asking his destination. Soyombo had been warned never to enter any car without photo confirmation. He also witnessed how girls are targeted. Two men showed him a video of 15 Nigerian girls, many looking underage, held nearby and spoke of wanting to exploit them.

The journey from Al Gatrun to Sabha was the hardest. Nine people were squeezed into a small car. Drivers shouted "konza" - bend down - to hide from police. Near checkpoints, they pushed migrants into the desert to trek several kilometres to meet the car on the other side.

Soyombo fell behind carrying heavy bags and wearing two jeans with cash hidden inside, with no belt. He walked on quicksand while his trousers slid down. Strangers helped - one from Niger State and another, Aminu from Yobe, who carried his bag and was beaten by traffickers for helping him. After trekking over 20km in batches, he was told bags were not allowed in the next car. He had seconds to grab his phones and passport while his food, charger and clothes were left behind.

He reached Sabha around 4 a.m. on June 25. There he met Nigerians, Prince from Abia and Eric from Rivers, who had been stuck in Libya for years. His connection man was supposed to pay 640 Libyan Dinars to the lodge owner. When he failed to pay, Soyombo paid himself, plus another 1,700 Dinars to continue to Tripoli.

From Sabha to Braq, migrants were forced to sit 8 people in a space meant for 3 in Hilux vans driving at dangerous speed. In Braq, they were kept on a farm used as cover for smuggling and forced to work for free under the sun. When they resisted, they were beaten. Women faced worse. A female source told him soldiers took girls from the farm to rape them for hours. Another migrant said a girl from Benue was raped by drivers for three straight days.

They left Braq on June 30 at 4 a.m., 14 of them lying on their sides in a Hilux booth, whipped with a hose to lie correctly. In Ash-Shurayf, he met Somali and Eritrean migrants for the first time, many sick and locked in a hall with prison-like windows.

The final stretch was the valley of Jabal al Gharbi. At 4:30 a.m. on July 1, they were dropped in open desert with only two shrubs for 16 people, insects biting through the night, and a well whose water smelled like a dead animal was inside it. Food came as 4 bottles of Pepsi for 16 people, brought by a 15-year-old boy. When a car finally came at 3:53 p.m., they were squeezed again - 10 in a truck bed, 11 forced into an SUV booth for over four hours. A 51-year-old Ghanaian father wept from the pain.

Attribution: This is a summarized version published under fair dealing. Original investigation by Fisayo Soyombo, first published by Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ) on September 25, 2026 as "UNDERCOVER: Europe Through the Sahara Desert and the Mediterranean Sea (III)". Full credit to the author and FIJ. Read the full report here