Back in Nigeria from Germany: "This is no longer my country, it's like hell"

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After escape, abuse and deportation, Jennifer tries to build a life for her two sons, three and six years old, in Benin City. The children were born in Italy and Bavaria, they have never been to Africa before

Francesco Bellina

It's a scorching hot afternoon with high humidity. 39-year-old Jennifer opens the door to her temporary home: a dark, stuffy apartment in a northern suburb of Benin City, one of Nigeria's largest cities.

Prince, her three-year-old son, starts crying when he sees the white reporter and photographer enter after his mother, while Emmanuel, who is six, quickly runs away. "It's because of the German police, they are now afraid of white men," explains Jennifer, who, like all other people from Nigeria in this text, does not want to give her last name publicly for security reasons.

At the time of the March 2020 meeting, Jennifer and her two children had already been in the apartment for eight months. It belongs to a bus driver they met by chance near the airport in Lagos City. At that time they slept on the street, a few days after they were deported from Germany.

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Stella was also deported to Nigeria with her son in 2019. You have serious health problems to contend with

Since 2015, the Federal Republic of Germany has sent hundreds of Nigerians back to their country of origin. Last year, deported Nigerians were the largest national group from sub-Saharan Africa, measured by the number of deportation orders from the EU: They made up 12,175 of a total of 513,000 people asked to leave the country.

In 2016, 37,500 Nigerians landed in Italy alone. They formed the majority of those who had survived crossing the Mediterranean at the time. According to EASO, the EU asylum authority, two years later Germany replaced Italy as the main destination for Nigerian asylum seekers. But most of them are not allowed to stay: In 2019, only 6.8 percent of Nigerian asylum seekers were granted protection in Germany. 404 Nigerian nationals were deported from Germany to Nigeria, including 19 people who had not yet reached the age of 18.

And tens of thousands of Nigerians whose asylum applications have been rejected are still waiting to be deported from Germany. Because of the corona virus, this has hardly been possible so far. But with the air traffic, the deportations will start again. "With the end of the restrictions, returns will be resumed as soon as possible," says a spokeswoman for the Federal Ministry of the Interior.

When Jennifer thinks back to her experiences in Europe, tears often come to her. In 1999, human traffickers brought the then 19-year-old to the Canary Islands via Morocco. She was then forced into prostitution for 15 years, including in Spain and France, she says. Eventually she came to Italy, where she met a Nigerian man, the father of her two sons. But the relationship soon fell apart, Jennifer went to Germany, where she gave birth to her youngest child, Prince - and applied for asylum.

Her dream of a quiet family life in safety was abruptly interrupted in the summer of 2019. At that time, she says, "15 police officers showed up in my container house in the Gilching refugee camp near Munich and told me we had five minutes to pack our things."

Return to a foreign country

Jennifer said she was separated from her children during the flight to Nigeria and was guarded by four officers. The next day the family got together again and were released from the airport in Lagos with dozens of other deported men, women and children - without support, money or even a contact person in the country.

So Jennifer ended up with her children, who had never been to Africa before, first on the street and then in the bus driver's apartment.

"There is hardly any awareness of these returns in Germany: Nobody knows that children and women are being deported or has any idea what this means for their health and living conditions," says the German-Nigerian activist Rex Osa, from the Refugees Network for Refugees ("Refugees4Refugees"). Osa coordinates local volunteers in Lagos and Benin City to support deportees and to document the misconduct of German authorities.

"All these deportations are carried out inhumanly"

Margaret Ngozi Ukegbu, Lagos Director of the National Commission on Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons

"While voluntary returnees, whether from Libya or the EU, receive support," says Rex Osa, "these people pay a high price and Europe prefers to look the other way."

The EU return laws contain important fundamental rights guarantees; accordingly, each Member State must monitor how the forced return takes place. "We found that the German monitoring system tends to be fragmented. It ranges from the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) to volunteers who work for church organizations," said a statement by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights when asked whether the system introduced by the German authorities is in accordance with European standards. "Effective monitoring appears to cover only selected airports and the national agency for the prevention of torture is limited and ad hoc."

The Nigerian authorities also complain of a lack of interest on the part of European governments. For Margaret Ngozi Ukegbu, Lagos director of the National Commission on Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons, "all these deportations are carried out inhumanely". A commander of the Nigerian immigration authorities, the country's border police, told the reporter team that his office often only found out about deportation flights after the planes had already taken off in Germany. "We have no information on this matter," says a statement from the Federal Ministry of the Interior.

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Emmanuel has shared a tiny room with four other men in Lagos since he was deported to Nigeria in 2019

The result: Apparently many people stranded without any help in a country with which they have little connection or in which in many cases they do not know anyone who could support them.

"Every returnees has access to information and advice as well as the right to practical support regarding work and training opportunities in Nigeria, help in setting up small businesses and social and psychological support for the re-integration process in Nigeria," says the BMI.

Jennifer has not yet been able to find work in Nigeria. She cannot reach the father of her children and does not receive any money from him. So she still lives with the bus driver, who would rather not have her in his house anymore. "I was also hoping that I can move out sooner," says Jennifer on the phone. "He even hits me sometimes, but where should I go? Because of the coronavirus there are no more jobs. The children cry a lot because we often have nothing to eat."

As early as March, Jennifer had thought several times about suicide. After that everything got worse. "They told me I had to go back to my country, but this is no longer my country, it's like hell."

In the photo series, you can see how deported migrants now live in Nigeria - and what remains of their dreams:

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