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Gambian Cherno Jallow, Senegalese Cheikhaya Dieng, and Ivorian Fofana Lamine, are finishing 44-month jail sentences in Italy after people smugglers forced them to navigate boats across the Mediterranean. Shortly before they were due to be released, the three'Hold the compass or die': jailed migrants recount ordeal
Gambian Cherno Jallow, Senegalese Cheikhaya Dieng, and Ivorian Fofana Lamine, are finishing 44-month jail sentences in Italy after people smugglers forced them to navigate boats across the Mediterranean. Shortly before they were due to be released, the three men told AFP about their ordeals from their prison in Trapani, Sicily. All three left their respective countries in 2015 in search of work, and all three hoped to find it in Libya. But once there, 22-year-old Jallow was kidnapped and his family forced to pay a ransom. The chaos and threats to their safety meanwhile pushed Dieng, 22, and Lamine, 25, to contact people smugglers to try to reach Italy. «On the day of my departure, they gave me a compass and told me: 'Someone will steer the boat and you will hold the compass.'» said Lamine. «Me, I said I don't have any experience. But they have weapons! I didn't use the compass. I'm Ivorian, the other was Gambian, we didn't speak the same language!» Dieng was on another boat. «When he found out I was a fisherman for years, the intermediary gave me back my money and made me take the rudder,» he said. "I did it to save my life, because if I refused, they could kill me, for... Read more