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A heartbreaking plea from an 11-year-old Senegalese boy held in a Libyan detention center is among 400 personal accounts featured in "Humans in Transit," an exhibition in Dakar that brings to light the abuse, exploitation and struggle for survival faced by migrants and asylum seekers along routes to Europe.
Organized by Doctors Without Borders (MSF) at a gallery in Senegal's capital, the exhibition draws on hundreds of testimonies collected by the humanitarian organization's teams over the past decade at detention centers in Libya and aboard search-and-rescue vessels in the Mediterranean Sea.
Rather than presenting migration through statistics, the exhibition gives a voice to people who have experienced violence, human trafficking and dangerous sea crossings, while keeping their identities confidential for security reasons.
Artists from Afghanistan, Syria, Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, who have themselves experienced migration or asylum, have transformed the testimonies into illustrated portraits.
Visitors can read migrants' personal accounts alongside the artwork, while short films and video narratives bring other experiences to life.
The stories describe abuse at the hands of smugglers, mistreatment in Libyan detention facilities and life-threatening attempts to cross the Mediterranean.
Among the accounts is that of an 11-year-old Senegalese boy who had spent eight months traveling before being held in a Libyan detention center for three months. His testimony, recorded in December 2016, describes his loneliness and desperation to reunite with his family.
"I miss my family so much. I'm all alone. I really want to get out of here. Can you get me out?" he pleaded.
Another testimony comes from a 25-year-old Eritrean man who fled fighting in Yemen despite coming from a wealthy family. Speaking aboard a rescue vessel in October 2016, he recounted paying $6,000 to reach Libya through Sudan.
After enduring five months of beatings and mistreatment in Libya, he said his ambition was to finish his education and live peacefully.
A 28-year-old Nigerian woman described how her hopes of studying medicine turned into an ordeal after traffickers deceived her with promises of employment and forced her into prostitution.
She recounted suffering repeated violence and abuse, including injuries that left her hospitalized for two months, before eventually boarding a boat bound for Europe across the Mediterranean.
"I no longer dream of getting married or starting a family. I've been through everything here," she said, describing how repeated beatings and mistreatment had changed her life.
By bringing together these personal experiences, "Humans in Transit" seeks to show the individuals behind migration statistics and make their stories visible to the public.
The exhibition in Dakar remains open through Oct. 25.
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