An Al Jazeera collection: Leaving two youngsters behind, a pregnant Sierra Leonean mom pins her hopes on crossing to Europe.
Tunis, Tunisia — Standing within the drizzle exterior the Tunis workplace of the Worldwide Group for Migration, Saffiatu Mansaray is staring down at her swollen abdomen.
On the opposite aspect of the alley, her husband works alongside different undocumented folks, constructing a plastic-covered picket shelter for refugees whose keep in Tunis is continuous without end.
The couple have come to Tunisia from Sierra Leone and are hoping to get to Europe. However the longer they continue to be caught right here, the extra anxious Saffiatu, 32, is rising about her being pregnant.
“I’m seven months gone,” she says, one hand resting protectively on her stomach. “I’ve been right here since February.”
Earlier than embarking on a journey she knew could possibly be deadly, she left two youngsters in Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, with an aunt. The reminiscence remains to be contemporary in her thoughts.
Saffiatu and her husband have discovered different difficulties in Tunisia. They have been dwelling within the port metropolis of Sfax till a few months in the past when the police came for them. She’s undecided when that was precisely.
“The police catch us and take us to the desert,” she says. “They may come once more.”
That was the second time Saffiatu discovered herself on the Tunisian-Algerian border after crossing from Sierra Leone, which she left along with her husband in November.
This time, she, her husband and the others who have been herded onto a bus by the Tunisian safety providers in Sfax discovered themselves alone and weak to gangs of “dangerous boys” she says function within the forest close to Tunisia’s northern border with Algeria. These gangs prey on refugees, asylum seekers and migrants, stealing their telephones and any cash or valuables they’ve with them.
“We walked again by foot [from the Algerian border]. Some folks die. Some folks get sick,” she says with a passive shrug. She describes how the group was later intercepted on their journey by the police earlier than being returned to the border. “I bought sick,” she says. “I had pains throughout, beneath my abdomen. This was three weeks in the past. It was chilly.”
Saffiatu’s mother and father nonetheless stay in Freetown. Her father, who’s 70, is simply too frail to work in development any longer. Saffiatu says she want to ship a reimbursement, however with no work accessible to her or her husband in Tunis and a child on the best way, there’s none to spare. “I sit over there and beg. Daily I urge. I’ll inform them, ‘Mon ami, ca va?’ [‘How are you, my friend?’] Some folks give me one dinar, some two dinars [33 or 65 United States cents]. So for the day, I survive.”
On the opposite aspect of the alley, a rough shelter is starting to take form. The wooden has been salvaged from development websites and repurposed pallets and is being wrapped in thick black plastic that these dwelling within the chilly alley have pooled their meagre sources to purchase.
“If God grants me the want, I’ll proceed to Europe. There isn’t any work for any of us right here,” Saffiatu says. “Up till now, I see no physician, no nurse, nothing. I simply sit and hope.”
This text is the primary of a five-part collection of portraits of refugees from completely different international locations, with various backgrounds, sure by shared fears and hopes as they enter 2024.