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 facet of the alley, her husband works alongside different undocumented individuals, constructing a plastic-covered picket shelter for refugees whose keep in Tunis is constant for ever and ever.
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 might be deadly, she left two youngsters in Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, with an aunt. The reminiscence remains to be recent 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 unsure when that was precisely.
“The police catch us and take us to the desert,” she says. “They are going to come once more.”
That was the second time Saffiatu discovered herself on the Tunisian-Algerian border after crossing from Sierra Leone, which she left together 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 susceptible to gangs of “unhealthy 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 individuals die. Some individuals 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 acquired sick,” she says. “I had pains throughout, beneath my abdomen. This was three weeks in the past. It was chilly.”
Saffiatu’s dad and mom nonetheless stay in Freetown. Her father, who’s 70, is simply too frail to work in building 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 way in which, there’s none to spare. “I sit over there and beg. Day-after-day I urge. I’ll inform them, ‘Mon ami, ca va?’ [‘How are you, my friend?’] Some individuals give me one dinar, some two dinars [33 or 65 United States cents]. So for the day, I survive.”
On the opposite facet of the alley, a rough shelter is starting to take form. The wooden has been salvaged from building websites and repurposed pallets and is being wrapped in thick black plastic that these dwelling within the chilly alley have pooled their meagre assets to purchase.
“If God grants me the want, I’ll proceed to Europe. There isn’t a 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 totally different international locations, with various backgrounds, certain by shared fears and hopes as they enter 2024.