Clarisse's story
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Editor’s note: The following story is based on conversations with Clarisse from February 2019. It reflects her life and views at the time, much of which has changed since. The text was edited and collaboratively re-written for clarity with her approval. Most importantly, this remains her story, told in her words.
My name is Clarisse Zohori. I’m 45 years old and I was born in Abidjan, the capital of Côte d’Ivoire. Abidjan is a beautiful city, with lots of people of different nationalities: Europeans, French, Italians, Anglophones and Ivorians. I myself speak four languages: Bambara, Guéré and Bété and French.
My family lived in the Yopougon district, which is also where I went to elementary school. It was the French system, so we were taught a bit of everything, mathematics, geography, French, et Cetera.
When my mother lived with us, we were seven: my parents, my half brothers from my dad’s previous relationship, my brothers and me. But then one day, when I was little, my mother just left. I never understood what happened. Eventually, my father met someone else, and she moved in with us. She was difficult, though, and my father eventually stopped caring for us, left us to fend for ourselves and became abusive. He treated us as if we were always doing something wrong. Since he wouldn’t bring enough food for all of us to eat, I started working odd jobs so we could buy what we needed. I did what I could, here and there. braiding and styling hair. People would call and I would go to their homes. I was 13.
When I was 15, I met my first boyfriend and eventually, I moved in with him. We were on and off; we would break up, then get back together constantly. Then, when I was 17 or 18, we had our daughter and broke up for good. Those were difficult times. When she turned two, I had to give her to her paternal grandmother because I wasn’t doing well at all.
Eventually, I met someone else. Things improved. I found somewhere to live, and I brought her home with me. I started working as a trader, going back and forth to Ghana, importing underwear, perfumes, alcohol, all kinds of things. It paid well enough, and I was able to take care of my family.
In 2010, everything changed. The civil war broke out. Forces behind our newly elected president Ouattara and former president Gbagbo began fighting in the streets. At the time, I had a small store. Soldiers came and looted us, leaving us with nothing. I couldn’t make ends meet anymore. My life became a nightmare.
My man lost his job and became depressed. I became the sole breadwinner. It was only because of that that we managed to survive. I think losing his job made him bitter. He became aggressive and began to hit me; he even beat my eldest daughter and our two children. The violence was daily. You’d speak to him, and he’d beat you. You’d ask him for help, and he’d beat you. If you did anything he didn’t like, he’d use it as a reason to beat you.
One night, he raped my 13-year-old daughter. I tried to tell his family so that they would intervene, but they just blamed me. I couldn’t take it anymore. If I stayed, I knew that he’d eventually beat me to death. So, I secretly took the children and brought them to stay with one of my closest friends. She wasn’t Ivorian but immigrated to our country and worked at a hospital. After some time with her, she told me “You should leave the country and make money elsewhere. I can introduce you to someone who can find you work in Tunis”.
And so, I left Côte d’Ivoire in 2016 on a 10:40 pm flight. I landed in Tunis at 6 am.
Journey
TUNIS
A Tunisian family had paid all my expenses to come work for them- but no one had explained to me how things would work. I thought that after three or four months, I’d receive my salary and could begin to send money to my friend. After all, I’d left my children with her and she didn’t make a fortune, just enough to get by. When I arrived, I worked for more than five months without pay. I thought that after the sixth month, they’d pay me something, but it was just the opposite. They wouldn’t let me leave the house. They’d taken my passport. I was a prisoner. I cried all the time. Had I known that life would be this way, I would have never left for Tunis.
Thankfully, a young Ivorian plumber came to work on the house one day. I usually wasn’t allowed downstairs when there were visitors, but at some point, he came upstairs for water. We realized we were both Ivorian, and I told him that I’d been there for almost a year, and that the family never let me out
Since the owners were there, we couldn’t talk much. He told me that he’d be working on the house for a week and that we could talk later. When he came back the next day, I snuck downstairs and told him that I wanted to run away. “Since the owners are upstairs, let’s figure out how to get you away from here,” he told me. “Next time the family is out,” he added, “I’ll leave the door unlocked”.
He gave me his phone number so that I could reach him, since I didn’t know Tunis. He told me: ” When you get out of the house, don’t panic. Walk calmly, like everyone else. Eventually, you’ll cross a Black person. No matter who they are, just tell them ‘I’m sorry, I don’t have a phone and I’m in danger. Can you help me call this number?’ They’ll definitely help you.”
I was terrified that the owners would find out. But just as he said, one day, he left the door unlocked and I escaped. I couldn’t take anything; no clothes, no ID, no money, nothing. After walking for a while, I met a Black woman and asked her “Excuse me, I need to call my brother, but I don’t have a phone.” So we called the young man and she told him where we were. When he arrived, I was sitting on the ground, fearful and anxious, my stomach full of knots. He took me to his apartment, where I stayed for a few days. “If you don’t get out of Tunis, they’ll catch you, maybe accuse you of stealing money”, he said. “But I have nowhere to go. I don’t know anyone here. I haven’t left the house since I arrived”. He told me of a neighbouring country called Libya. He had a friend who could help me get there, even without a passport.
I left with his so-called friend. I didn’t know Libya, where it was or how to get there. My only desire at the time was to get back to my children. But the friend told me “Where we’re going, everything will be alright. Don’t be afraid. I understand that you want to see your children, but right now we don’t even know where they are.”
Before leaving, I was brought to stay at a house for a few days, where I met two other Ivorian women. We were told that, to reach Libya, we’d have to cross the desert. We left in a van the next morning.
Night had fallen by the time we stopped. We seemed to be in the middle of nowhere, so I asked what was going on. “We have to cross the border on foot, but we must remain quiet to avoid the dogs. Walk slowly and quietly, in the dark. No one can see us”.
Just as we reached the Libyan border, we were ambushed by armed men. They took everything we had, our clothes, everything. The young man abandoned us, fleeing into the night. When the men left, we didn’t know where to go, so we kept walking until we found a small, abandoned house.
We were terrified. We thought that if anyone found us, it would mean prison – or even death. Eventually, we saw a shepherd passing. We approached him and explained that we were lost and wanted to go to Libya. He answered “But you are in Libya. You’re in Zouara.” He brought us to his little hut, where he offered us food and water. He was Black but didn’t speak French, only Arabic. Yet somehow, we understood each other. He called people who came to pick us up in a pickup truck. We thought that we were in good hands.
That was a mistake.
LIBYA
They brought us to a large building without windows and demanded money. We told them about our journey, and about how what little we had had been stolen by those Libyans earlier. They kept the three of us locked in a room. We could hear other voices nearby, screaming, crying for help in French, English, all kinds of languages. Every day, they’d slide small bottles of water and some food under the door.
After three months, a man came. He told us that he didn’t want to hurt us and that he was going to take us to his brother. Instead, he took us to a large camp by the sea in Zouara, where there were hundreds of Blacks. I think it was an abandoned housing project, as we lived in unfinished brick houses.
I remember thinking: “I escaped death at the hands of my husband in Côte d’Ivoire. I escaped that terrible family in Tunis. Now, I’m in Libya, and things are even worse.” We thought that our captors would eventually kill us. I cried all the time, begging God for forgiveness: “Forgive me if I’ve sinned. I fled death only to find death. If I pass, please protect my children”.
But one day, a young man came and asked us why we were crying. I answered him for all of us: “We all know that we’ll die here. We just don’t know how. They always carry guns, so maybe they’ll shoot us. So, we’re asking God for forgiveness for all the sins that we’ve committed.”
“They won’t shoot you, but they might send you to the water”, the young man said. When I heard that, I remember thinking “so that’s how God has chosen for us to die”.
And so, we waited. We’d eat, sleep, go to the bathroom all in this tiny room. The bathroom ran on seawater, and since we had no money to buy freshwater, that’s what we drank most of the time.
Then one night, we heard gunshots. Guards were shooting to left and right. People were fleeing and screaming. We saw women with babies on their backs, running for their lives. We thought they were going to destroy the camp. Meanwhile, we huddled together and once again asked God for forgiveness. One of the guards burst into our room. He told us to move. We joined a group of others, four women and four men, and they put us all in the back of two pickup trucks. The others had been sent to prison, we were told, but we were being sold.
The next morning, they brought us to a large villa where we were showcased like livestock at an auction and paraded in front of potential bidders. Out of the three of us, only two of us were sold. Two men forced us into a car. We’d been sold to a Black man from Ghana, but he spoke only English, so he was accompanied by a young Burkinabé, who translated for us.
The man told us that we had to call our families to send him money. Otherwise, he would pimp us out until we’d repaid our value. We started to cry. I was terrified. The only family I was still close to was my little sister, but she had no money. I had no one to call, no one to help me.
The men asked 800 dinars for my freedom (around $175). I told them, sobbing: “I have no one to call. If it’s the money or death, you should just kill me”. I was crying so much that the young Burkinabé tried to reassure me: “You’re older. No one will force you to prostitute yourself”. We were so terrified that the young man gave the Ghanaian his money back and took us to his home.
Once there, we were finally able to relax a bit. The young man was so kind. He did everything for us. But we didn’t know that in Libya when someone knocks on the door, you mustn’t open it.
He told us that worked for Libyans but said that his boss was a nice and compassionate man. He had told him our story, and his boss had promised to sort things out. One day, someone came knocking at our door. Thinking it was the young man, we opened – but it was two Libyan men. They told us that they were there to fetch us and ordered us to get in the trunk of their car. After several hours on the road, we started wondering if the young man was aware of what was happening to us. When we arrived, we were locked in an unfinished house for three months.
We were isolated from others. There was nothing to do, so we just sat all the time. Occasionally, the guards would bring food. At some point, they started taking my friend as their “woman”. Our captors would go to town and come back with groups of drunk men, who all took turns with her. If she refused, they would beat us both.
One morning, the men told us that we were to leave that evening. We thought that meant that they would take us somewhere to kill us. We were so terrified that we couldn’t eat. We just cried all day.
That evening, we were again shoved in the trunk of their car. When we emerged, we realized that we had been brought to the seaside. Then men led to a container where we found 80 or so other Black men, women, and children. They began to count us. A young man was so afraid that he wouldn’t stop crying. They shot him in the foot, and the crowd panicked. Everyone started crying. We thought they were going to kill us one by one.
I asked God for forgiveness for what I had done to my children, who had not asked to be born. I’d left them with my friend and now I didn’t even know where they were. The girl who was with me was crying as well. The guards started to line up the boys.
The men started beating people with the butt of their guns, shouting “move!”, shoving people outside of the container. Not being able to see what was going on outside, we assumed that they were executing people one by one. When it was the women’s turn, we moved to the back, hoping that they would stop the killings before they reached us. Then it was our turn. They took the girl I was with first. “Go ahead,” he told her. The girl turned to me and said “adieu”, holding my hand. We were both crying as she let go.
When I stepped out of the container, I found no bodies. I realized that the men were traffickers and were placing everyone in inflatable boats. Some men helped me climb into a dinghy, where I found somewhere to sit. To this day I don’t understand why we were let go. I don’t know if the others paid for their freedom, but as far as the girl and I were concerned, no one had demanded money.
They pushed us out around 10 p.m. It took us several hours before we left Libyan waters, during which all I could do was close my eyes and pray. I didn’t want to look at the waves because I still couldn’t believe what was happening. “Maybe once we’re far out enough, they’ll shoot us all or sink the boat”, I thought. I know how to swim, but in the middle of the Mediterranean, with nowhere to go, it would have been useless. No one looked at anyone else. Everyone was sitting, crying, or praying. All I could do was ask God for forgiveness.
Then, I heard a young man shout, “A ship! I see a ship!”.
The ship approached, and once it was near enough, the crew spoke to us in English, then Arabic, and then French. “We are a rescue NGO called SOS Méditerranée. We’re here to save you. Please keep calm. Your boat taking on water, but we’ll distribute life jackets to all of you. First, we’ll take the children, then their mothers, and after that the women, then the men”.
Once we had safely boarded their ship, they gave us aluminum rescue blankets. All of us were still in shock, and many were still crying. The crew took care of us well. They spoke to us one by one, offering food and water. One woman called Stefania came to comfort us because my friend wasn’t feeling well. She gave her medication and would often return to take her temperature. She told us that we were no longer in danger and that within three or four days, we’d reach Italy, where we’d be properly cared for.
There were also journalists and photographers onboard. They would come to us and ask about what we had experienced. But all I could think of were my children. I didn’t want to talk. Were they in good hands? Would they make the same mistakes as I had? Why had I risked my life just to run away from home?
I was so overwhelmed that I just sat crouched in a corner. At one point, a journalist approached me. He told me to relax, and not to think too much about what had happened. He calmed me down and we spoke for a while; I answered his questions, and he took some pictures. Whenever I would feel anxious, we would stop, let it pass, then continue. That was my journey until we arrived in Italy.
Italy
We arrived in Sicily on Easter Monday 2018. I remember this because, it being a holiday, the crew wasn’t sure if the port authorities would allow us to dock. But eventually, someone came to greet us. We were well taken care of, given food, blankets, clothes and shoes – because most of us were barefoot. We were given numbers and armbands of different colours. Those of us who had a yellow armband were called to the first floor for a health check. If we were healthy, we were told to go up to another floor. One by one, we would do this, until we reached immigration, where we were processed, given food and something to drink, and asked basic questions about our age, nationality, and our journey. After that, we were accommodated for two days. On the third day, we were told that we’d be transferred to a “Campo”, meaning a reception center. I was first sent to Borgo Nuovo in Palermo.
Borgo Nuovo had two sections, one for women and one for men. My residence was in a duplex, over two floors. When anyone new arrived, they’d be sent to a special room on the first floor, where they could clean and disinfect themselves. After that, they’d be taken to the second floor, where the rest of us lived. There were two living rooms, a small one and a large salon.
After everything that had happened to me in Libya, when I first arrived in Italy, I had trouble trusting others. I would just keep to myself and preferred to stay alone. Eventually, I felt better. We were well accommodated and ate well. The people there took good care of us.
It was a beautiful place. I would go for walks and admire the landscape. Sometimes, I’d go to a nearby hamlet. Those working at the campo came to see me as a mother, even though they were white, and I was black.
At first, there were many of us at Borgo Nuovo, including plenty of Ivorians. But many people just wanted to go to France, so after two or three months, they started leaving, and our numbers decreased.
After nine or ten months, I was transferred to another reception centre. When I arrived there in December, I was interviewed by the Asylum Commission. They asked me many questions, but God gave me faith in myself, and I answered sincerely; I told them my story, that I had left my country because I was in danger, that I didn’t want to leave, let alone take this horrible journey. I had to.
I was offered political asylum with a five-year residence.
Little by little, I’ve learned to trust people again. I’ve made new friends, both Italians and Africans. Some Ivorians I know outside of the campo often invite me out to eat. This gives me a reason to dress up and go out. Otherwise, I’m often in my room, surfing the web on my laptop, reading about what’s going on in the world. On Sundays, I go to church and then I gather the girls here for lunch.
Everyone here at the campo calls me mamma because I like to take care of others, especially the youngsters. I like that because when I look at them, I feel like I could have put them in the world. I love everyone, no matter their ethnicity or nationality. To me, everyone is the same. So, when I see them, these young people, when I wake up in the morning and I see a girl, I give her a hug. That’s why everyone calls me mamma.
Before, when I was in Côte d’Ivoire, I didn’t believe in God. But surviving my journey can only be considered a miracle. I could have died so many times, but I kept praying, and somehow, I lived. After everything I saw, after everything I experienced, it’s undeniable to me that God exists. He never forgets his children. To this day, I pray daily. I pray for those on their way to arrive safely. I pray for those who arrived in Italy before me and who have not yet seen the Asylum Commission or received their papers. I was lucky to obtain asylum as soon as I did. For some, it takes years.
We’re well taken care of here, at the CAS San Francesco reception center. Every month, we’re given a bit of money, 75 euros, for small purchases. I like the neighbourhood, called Ballarò. It’s a nice historic area, with beautiful churches, statues, and monuments. I take Italian classes in the evenings, between 4 pm and 7:30 pm. I’m progressing well, as it’s not that different from French – though the accent is difficult to master.
I just miss my children. I wish I knew where they were. When I was trapped in Tunis, I still spoke to them, but since I left, it’s been impossible to reach them. My eldest must be 21 by now. I can only hope that one day, an acquaintance back home will message or call me to say that they’ve found them. I search for them all the time online but haven’t found anything so far. But I still have hope. Maybe one day, they can join me here. But not by the same route. They’d have to come here legally. I would never wish that journey upon anyone.
I know that many migrants have a difficult time here in Italy. The government has imposed stricter regulations on asylum and shut down many reception centers. Many Blacks experience racism and discrimination here, but not all Italians are prejudiced. Since I arrived, I’ve only met compassionate people, people who treated us Blacks as brothers or sisters. I have cousins elsewhere in Europe, but I prefer to stay in Italy. I like being on my own. When I arrived, the people here welcomed me. It’s thanks to the Italians that I am alive today. If they hadn’t helped us, we would all have perished in the Mediterranean. I may have black skin, but one day, I’d like to call myself an Italian.
