My name is Fallubah and I lived on an island. Not one surrounded by sea, nor in the middle of a lake. No, my island was surrounded by traffic. Cars, buses, taxis and lorries circled us day and night like a siege army.

This was my temporary home, one of many I have had in the last three years. The island, or what you would call a roundabout lies in the centre of Sfax. Where is Sfax? I hear you ask, and I will tell you.

Sfax is the second-largest city in Tunisia. Where is Tunisia? I hear some of you ask, and I will tell you. Tunisia is a small country in North Africa in the embrace of cousins Libya and Algeria. It protrudes into the Mediterranean Sea like jam from a sandwich, which is its attraction to the likes of me. Other than the distance from Ceuta in Morocco to Algeciras in Spain, Sfax is the nearest point in Africa to Europe.

Europe is where we all want to be. Who are we? I hear you ask, and I will tell you. We are the many. Men, women, and children who have been persecuted and forsaken by their mother countries for various reasons. I was born in Sierra Leone, at an unfortunate time for that country. Not that there has ever been a fortunate time in its brief existence. Sometimes I think that it was cursed when the British created it, to repatriate slaves they had stolen from West Africa.

Life was far from pleasant, living on my island. The temperature was forty degrees and there were fourteen trees under which to shelter from the sun. Needless to say, there was huge demand for such shaded spots. In addition to our daily discomfort, we were harassed by police during the day, and local Arab men at night. They both objected to our presence in their city.

For personal safety reasons, we travelled in groups when looking for work, food and water. This worked to our disadvantage as we were accused of forming gangs. Again, we were attacked and tormented by locals who saw us as a threat. Paradoxically, the only folks who befriended us were charity workers and those after our savings. The latter promised us safe passage to Italy and onward into Europe, including Germany and the UK.

This is my story.

A Tale of sacrifice, struggle, suffering and abuse; all in the hope of a chance to work for a living in a place where we can be welcomed for who we are and not someone’s preconceived idea of what we are not.

I was born in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone in March nineteen eighty-eight, three years before the start of the Civil War, which lasted until I was thirteen, and took three of my uncles and my oldest brother. I lived with my mother and sisters and was lucky enough to attend school, thanks to a scholarship my Father had paid for before being killed by Government soldiers. I then worked in the kitchen of a restaurant in Fourah Bay, while studying for my Bachelor Degree in Civil Engineering.

My dream job came in the spring of two thousand and fourteen at the Highways department of Freetown City council. In October of that year, my Mother and sisters succumbed to the Ebola virus. That was when I decided to leave this God-forsaken country. The family home was mine and every snake and rodent came out of the undergrowth to help me part with it.

What is it like, living on your island? I hear you ask, and I will tell you. As I said, it is unpleasant but not the most unpleasant of my temporary homes. In fact, I would rank all of the places I have stayed in terms of unpleasantness. The most unpleasant being the detention camp in Tripoli and the least being in Coquelles, France. Yes, I came within fifty kilometres of the United Kingdom on that occasion, being the second of three attempts to flee my country.

Speaking of which, let me tell you about my country. Sierra Leone is the angry teenager of Africa. Surrounded by its siblings Liberia and Guinea. Forsaken by their parents, they continue to lash out in temper, but none more so than the youngster. Who are the parents? I hear you ask, and I will tell you. The International Community, that’s who. They conceived this baby of the African Continent, full of good intentions, to satisfy their guilt. Then they abandoned it to fend for itself.

Now it is a lawless place, populated by warring factions and mercenaries who are paid in the currency of the country’s natural resources. Stakes in diamond and mineral mines are their reward for gratuitous violence. Meanwhile, the parents continue to ignore the child and its siblings tolerate it. They provide camps for the fleeing population, where they live in conditions no better than home. This is why anywhere is better than living there. Even a traffic island in a North African seaside town where everyone hates you. At least I still had my limbs and dignity here. Arabs are angry but I understand them and many are very respectful.

Once, when I still owned the family home in Freetown, my friend Abdulai, told me a story. He said his cousin works for a food delivery company in London. He owns his own electric bicycle and lives in an apartment with hot and cold water, a toilet and shower. He told me that his cousin works in a place called Hackney.

The route North is called The Temple Run, after a popular computer game played by local youths. In it, one has to negotiate a journey that is fraught with danger and traps of different kinds. I was soon to find out how it got its name.

Before I set off, Abdulai gave me some valuable advice. He told me not to keep all of my money in one place. In addition, he recommended the services of a fixer that his cousin had used.

This man was Arab. Libyan or Algerian, I think. He appeared very kind and respectful, hardly taking any money for his services. Also I got a good rate for my Sierra Leonean Leones, in US dollars.

This was just as well because I would have needed my own truck to carry the former. I can’t even remember how many zeros in SLL five thousand dollars is, but there were many!

He gave me a small vessel, which screwed apart, the size of a large cigar. I then had to place two thousand dollars rolled up inside. When he showed me where to put it, with the help of some vaseline, I was shocked, may I tell you! It certainly took some getting used to.

I was to place the remaining sum in four separate amounts on my person. Some in my clothing and exactly fifteen-hundred dollars in a money belt. This, he said, I would have to sacrifice but it would save my life. I asked him how so and why so much? He said it had to be enough to convince the bandits that it was your entire fund and to discourage them from looking further. Some people had been cut open because they didn’t do this. It upset me considerably but he was proven right, to my good fortune.

I set off on my journey from a derelict homestead near the border with Guinea. At the rendezvous point, I was shocked to be reunited with one of my ex-colleagues Mahmoud. He had been a clerk in the council office in Freetown. We embraced and shared our experiences. He too had two-thousand dollars up his ass! He told me he had stolen the money his sisters had received from the IOM.

What is the IOM? I hear you ask and I will tell you. The International Organization for Migration is an NGO which is responsible for repatriating migrants who have been stranded in foreign countries. This is where it gets interesting as my friend explained. Here is his story.

To encourage people to return from nearby Mali, before they embarked on the most perilous part of their journey through Niger and Libya to the Mediterranean, migrants were given a Grant.

If they returned to Sierra Leone they were offered fifteen-hundred US dollars and a free flight. In addition they were also offered advice on how to start a business in their home country.

However this system was abused as people deliberately took buses into Mali then pretended to be migrants. There, they would be given a free flight and the cash. Eventually the IOM found out and the scheme was scrapped. Not before Mahmoud’s sisters had successfully practiced the scam, raising three-thousand dollars between them.

This was how he justified stealing their money because it was stolen money anyway, in his eyes. When the bandits came, he was parted with it, along with his life.

We were sitting in the back of the fixer’s Hilux, when they appeared behind us. The driver decided to try and outrun them and we all hung on for dear life. Unfortunately we hit a pothole and Mahmoud was thrown from the pickup.

As luck would have it, Mahmoud’s misfortune was our good fortune, as the bandits decided to cut their losses and stop where my friend lay unconscious.

They fell upon him like a pack of hyenas, machetes glinting in the afternoon sun, turning red with my friends blood. It was my first experience at the hands of these ruthless animals, but not my last.

We didn’t escape for very long as we were first apprehended by border guards at the Mali/Niger border, and then almost immediately preyed upon by Libyan bandits in Agadez. My fifteen-hundred dollars went at the border and the Libyans took another five-hundred that was stitched into the collar of my jacket.

Two-thousand dollars gone and I was only a third of the way to the Mediterranean. Add to that the five-hundred I gave to the fixer and that makes half of my money lost. I still had a long way to go. Would my funds last the journey?

***

My name is Abdullah and I’m from Freetown in Sierra Leone. I now live and work in Hackney, which is in London. I love my job. People are so kind. Both the people I work with and my customers. I call them that because I serve them.

They are mostly happy and I am always happy. It rains a lot here in the UK and sometimes it’s difficult finding my way around. However, when I think of home, I switch off. If only we had the challenges of the British people. Too hot, too cold, too wet, not enough rain for my lawn.

I must go and pick up my bicycle. It’s not really mine, I rent it from someone. I think he’s from Eritrea or Ethiopia–they all look the same to me! He lets me ride it when he’s asleep, which is not the best time. Evenings and weekends are very lucrative.

I have it in the morning on Monday to Thursday and he pays me cash, by the job, minus the hire of the bike. Hackney is a good place, full of people like me. We share stories of home, from Sierra Leone to DRC and South Sudan. I am learning French and Arabic.

My customers are all white English. Some are students and others don’t really seem to do anything, except watch TV and eat Greggs. In the morning it’s bacon or sausage buns with coffee and at lunchtime it’s steak bakes with chocolate muffins. I once tried a steak bake. It wasn’t a pleasant experience, I must say.

I miss food from home, I miss everything from home, except the violence. Sometimes, when I’m asleep, I dream about it. I witnessed many terrible things. How can one human being do such things to another? When a customer gets angry with me for being late, because of a puncture or the food wasn’t ready, I smile politely and apologise. A few harsh words are no match for having a hand cut off, or as I witnessed once, your head.

Some people are so kind. Especially students and professionals. They tip well and ask about my life before. I am polite but brief, and tell them time is money. However, the real reason is because I don’t like talking about it.

They say there is a shortage of doctors, nurses and teachers here in the UK. I used to teach mathematics and physics in Freetown, but I can’t here, for some reason. My cousin back home teaches Biology but has no work. It’s such a shame.

On my days off, I go to Regent’s Park if it’s sunny and the British Museum if it’s cold and wet. I love looking at the exhibits that the British stole from around the world. Some remind me of home or my long journey here.

At the end of the month, I get paid by the bike owner. I send half home to my family and divide the rest between rent, food and savings. One day I will have my own bike and live like a king. Until then, I will work hard every day and be thankful for my good fortune. Inchallah.

***

The bandits gave me the choice to join them or die where I stood. Some choice! That was when I crossed to the other side, from good to evil, to stay alive. We patrolled the long road between Agadez and Tripoli, preying on people such as myself. I thought about escaping, but fear paralysed me when I witnessed the violence around me. I remember when I first had blood on my hands. A young man from Mali and his teenage sister were sitting in the back of a Mazda pickup. One of our snipers had taken out the driver and also the wingman when he tried to flee. We descended on the truck like hyenas on a corpse. The couple were dragged from the vehicle and immediately separated.

Our leader was a broad man, standing head and shoulders above the others. He went by the name of Mohammad, like their prophet. His beard and moustache, resembling the black thorny bush that surrounded us, covered all but his piercing eyes, the colour of the honey made by the bees at home. His shmagh was always immaculately folded about his head. He wore two green emeralds, one in his left earlobe and the other on his left ring finger. They were said to have belonged to Maummar Gaddafi himself. My fellow bandits, from all over West Africa, said he’d been high up in Gaddafi’s government and had a price on his head in Tripoli. He picked the girl up with one huge hand and carried her into the thicket. Her brother begged for her virtue; then her life when he heard the screams. He was silenced by a blow to the head from a rifle butt. Two of the other Libyans began to remove his clothing as the screams grew louder from the bush. As he stood naked, the cries abated, and his own took up. He fell on his knees and began to wail in Bambara.

“Kill me! Kill me now and make it swift. I will join my sister.” Those of us familiar with the tongue willed it for the poor man. The Arabs looked on, a mixture of humour and puzzlement on their faces. Then, the second in command, a skinny specimen with intelligent eyes, and a poor excuse for facial hair, turned to me. He resembled a Meerkat, his head darting this way and that, looking for potential danger. He handed me his rifle, the first time I’d held a weapon since National Service. Removing the bayonet from his belt, he set about the unfortunate’s clothes, slitting every stitch and seam. He recovered a few hundred dollars from the rags and I recalled the fixer’s words.

I was to place the remaining sum in four separate amounts on my person. Some in my clothing and exactly fifteen-hundred dollars in a money belt. This, he said, I would have to sacrifice but it would save my life.

The following sequence of events sent me from Heaven to Hell. The Meerkat handed me the bayonet and bid me to fix it to the Kalashnikov. He turned the young man on his face and held his legs apart with his feet.

“Silence this pig and find the rest. Here to here,” the rodent squeaked in Arabic, pointing at his testicles and drawing an imaginary line to the base of his spine. The following moments weren’t my own as the victim calmly instructed me.

“Do as he says, brother. The money is there, where he said,” the man rasped into the dirt in Bambara. “Shoot me first. I know I’m your first one. Do that for me.” His voice had changed to one of soft acceptance, and something clicked in my head. I raised the gun, placed the muzzle on the back of his head, and pulled the trigger. Four shots rang out, the weapon jumped from my hand, turning the target into a scarlet stain in the dirt. The Meerkat squealed with anger, just as his superior emerged from the bush, fastening his belt. The little man was distracted by the presence of the monster.

“No seconds for me, my Lord?” He whimpered, almost folding double in a submissive bow.

“Not this time, Adnan,” the giant replied. At that point, something possessed me. I saw the little man in the place of the victim, his legs apart, begging for mercy. Recalling his instructions, I picked up the smoking gun and lurched forward and split the corpse between the two points. With the fresh, still warm entrails came not one but two containers similar to the one nestling between my cheeks.

The Meerkat forgot his temporary ardour and fell upon the two tubes, wiping the mixture of blood and faeces from them on my thawb. He unscrewed both, and at least ten thousand dollars fluttered from them. Suddenly, my fellow countrymen and the other West Africans lifted me onto their shoulders. They carried me around the bloody scene, while the Arabs looked on laughing and counting the hoard. One of the revellers, a man-mountain from Mali, put his face against my ear.

“We saw what you did brother. Your kindness will not be forgotten when we deal with these rats,” the colossus growled in my ear, then kissed my cheek.

Two days later, a mile from the border post of Assamakka, between Niger and Algeria, the plan was executed, along with the Arabs and their loyal African minions.That night, I was told I would take no part in the massacre. “Stay under your blanket and don’t move, whatever happens,” the giant Malian said. “If we are successful you will be rich, if not, at least you will live.” This is how it happened, as I heard from him later.

***

When the rats went to pray, we were always watched by two Non-Believers, scum from Liberia. They would sell their grandma for a few dollars. We had to overcome them so as not to alert the Meerkat, who had eyes in his ass, even when he was facing Mecca!

With the Liberians taken care of, we approached the makeshift mosque and selected a man each. As they bent forward for the last time, we set about them like lions on buffalo; in the sight of their God. We made sure they would meet their virgins, even though they’d had their share of ours. As I drew my knife across Mohammad’s throat, I thought of the young girl from the other day. I then cut off his ear and his finger, making sure they were still attached to the jewels. I would present them in Tripoli and ensure my future and those of my brothers.

The Meerkat managed to escape, thanks to the eyes in his ass and we had such good sport hunting him down. His screams for mercy could be heard in his home country, twenty miles away.

***

The following morning, I finally emerged from my blanket to see two silver tubes on a stone next to the ashes of the fire. They contained almost ten thousand dollars! That funded two attempts at Europe, the last one ending in Coquelles. I was flown back to Tripoli where I met my benefactor in the detention camp. The Libyans had double crossed him, taken the jewels and thrown him into the camp. We managed to escape and ended up here on this island. One day, we shall make another attempt at the UK.

Epilogue.

I finally arrived in the UK and, after a long process, I am in a place called Newcastle upon Tyne. It is a beautiful city with a river and many bridges, one which blinks like a giant eye. It is freezing, even in the summer but the locals, who are very jolly, hardly wear any clothes. I live near the university, where I share a house with five other people. We have such fun, sharing our stories. Sometimes we laugh and sometimes we cry. I will never forget the young Malian man who begged me to kill him.

If you answer the front door and you find a black man on your doorstep, with a bike and a large orange box on his back, give me a smile.

Bon appetit!