Episode 29: 'I will keep knocking on Fortress Europe's walls'

IN today's episode, we speak with Yambio David Oliver, founder of the campaign group Refugees in Libya.    He tells us why he had to flee his home in South Sudan, about working in a gold mine in Chad and why he was forced to make the deadly desert crossing into Libya.   We hear about his time in the North African country, where he was treated like a slave, forced to join a militia, and made multiple attempts to escape across the Mediterranean.    He tells us about the Libyan Coastguards, who pushed him back to Libya from Maltese waters, about the police raids on refugees in Tripoli, and how the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) failed to protect them.    He tells us how he brought international attention to the plight of refugees in Libya, how his activism made him a target for the militias, and how he finally managed to escape the country.    ---Show notes---   For more on Refugees In Libya, see their blog here: refugeesinlibya.org, and The Civil Fleet's coverage here: bit.ly/3dwbsD7    Follow Refugees in Libya on Twitter: @RefugeesinLibya  You can read The Civil Fleet's previous interviews with Yambio here: bit.ly/3phm633 and here: bit.ly/3PmmcRy    Here's a response from the UNHCR on the situation outside its community day care centre in Tripoli in January: bit.ly/3bPFCAP   Early on in the interview, Yambio refers to himself as an IDP, an internally displaced person. You can read more about IPD on the UNHCR's website here: bit.ly/3PoGARY    If you need to see a map of Central and North Africa, and of the countries Yambio speaks about, see here: bit.ly/3dtYhT8   This 2016 Vox video seems to have a good (though US-centric) explanation of the Sudanese Civil War and South Sudanese Civil War: bit.ly/3BYKv58   Read this Al Jazeera article on child soldiers in South Sudan: bit.ly/3Au4qI9    Here's a couple of interesting articles on the gold mines in Chad: bit.ly/3piqbE5 and bit.ly/3C4jP2H   For more on the Italy-Libya Memorandum of Understanding, see episode 19 of The Civil Fleet podcast with Italian journalist Lorenzo D'Agostino. For more on Mohammed Al-Khoja and Bija, see this story by The Africa Report bit.ly/3C5BZBf, and this Guardian story: bit.ly/3pimX3v     For more on Alarm Phone, see episodes 3 and 5.   Get in touch: @FleetCivil [email protected] civilfleet.com   Support:  ko-fi.com/civilfleet