08 Mohamed

Mohamed. 16 years old. Malian. | Following a crime committed by his brother, Mohamed was no longer welcome in his village. The family home was ransacked and Mohamed was forced to move far away. The young man then traveled from Mali to Niger. He sold bags of water, cooked spaghetti on the street, or carried the luggage of travelers whom he would eventually follow. Shunted from one encounter to the next, Mohamed eventually arrived in Libya where he experienced an ordeal. “They locked me up for two or three months there. Because I didn’t have the money to pay. The bandits come and see you: if you pay, they let you go. . . . Otherwise, they hit you and hit you.” Released by an Ivorian living in Libya, Mohamed had to work to repay his benefactor. To “build his life,” he decided to cross the Mediterranean. Whenever he can, he calls an acquaintance of his father in Mali. “He says good words to me: ‘If you are a man, you will always be a man. You have to be brave. Your father is fine.’ . . . If he talks about my father, it gives me the strength to keep going.” | Paroisse San Antonio, Vintimille, Italia 2017