Things are getting better, thank God. I wondered we barely talked about African migrants who still die, trying to cross the Mediterranean aboard inflatable boats. We forgot them during the pandemic. I mean, we all did as if they had suddenly stopped to exist with the Corona crisis.
Look there, pink birds are flying free over the waters. There, Miss UNHCR seems tired. We ask a lot from her. She knows and agrees with us. She must be struggling with the Black people corpses in the Mediterranean Sea.
She walks through warm sand, a bright sun. She keeps her gaze down. The reality is too bright to watch with bare eyes. She always needs a few minutes, gazesdown, shouts and cries in echo, few minutes to understand what is really happening.
Discouragement. On her face. No way to cry. Cry no be fly.
At some point, you get used to the bitter taste of your job.
She feels tired. The voices of those young Black people. It’s like one loud shout. Like young men taking the streets in anti-government protests. Stones. Hoods. Burned wheels. They shout. “Gooo!” “Enough!” “We be tired!” “Over TIRED”
A little cat to pet. That’s what she precisely wants. Now. A meuwing cat. A little cat’s tongue on her cheek. That’s what she really desires at this moment. The sun. the waves. The night. A vessel. What’s her vessel’s name. Wait. Wait. Vikings. Something like that. Uhum. Vikings Vessel, like in the VIth century. You know, Ragnar Lothbroth, Lagertha. Floooki! Floki yep! The best. The Vikings Vessel rescue migrants in the Mediterranean, in the XXI century.
Besides, how many African migrants in Europe have lost their jobs? (I will come back to dis palaba veri soon) How many African families are touched directly or indirectly from that increasing financial insecurity? The World Bank estimates the direct investment coming from the Nigerian diaspora in 2019 at almost 30 billion USD. Which means about 7% of the Nigerian GDP in the same year.
European countries have squabbled like kids over anti-Covid vaccines doses. This is mine! Oh nooo it‘s mine! Oh stealer! Oh give it to me! Me! Me Oh! Cron! Cron! Cron!
African leaders wait asides, drinking palm wine. Tranquilles! The Covax, Spoutnik, Sinopharm or Sinovac will come to them. Streets are egg cells. Where is the world anti-Covid financial help for African countries? Show me the moneeeey! N’importe quoi!
I’m drinking withi dem. Mama UHNRC asked me say: “In the end, who’s going to pay?” I answered: “Are you asking me?”