Last month on November 14, 2017, CNN broadcast a programme focusing on the trafficking and sale of black migrants in Libyan slave markets. The investigation resulted in a multitude of reactions around the world. According to the newspaper Le Monde, the UN has denounced this situation. United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al-Hussein, strongly denounced the deteriorating conditions of migrants in Libya, calling the EU’s cooperation with this country “inhuman”.
Fatoumata Diawara has released her new video “DJONYA” (‘Slavery’ in bambara) to denounce on the one hand the atrocities perpetrated against the migrants coming mostly from sub-Saharan Africa (brothers of Africa) and on the other hand to provide a glimmer of hope to all those who are victims of these modern times.
With “DJONYA”, Fatoumata wishes to condemn this tragic situation. It is a song that defends the idea that every woman and every man belongs to the human race regardless of colour, ethnicity or religion and that every being should be respected.
It is about time that all this changes. We are all human beings made of flesh and blood. If each individual is unique, all individuals are alike. A life lived in diversity is a life of unimaginable wealth.
In this recent article by John Dalhuisen, the director of Amnesty International’s Europe and Central Asia programme, he declared that it was “essential that the aims and nature of European cooperation with Libya are rethought, to end this unconscionable collusion in human suffering.”
Find out more via Amnesty International.