Mercy Oluwagbenga, a recent rescuer from Libya, claims she was forced to donate blood to the sick employee’s mother in the North African nation after being beaten and forced to do so.
Oluwagbenga, who spoke on Thursday when she appeared as a guest on Channels TV’s The Morning Brief, also narrated how she worked without a paycheck and was imprisoned in Libya.
Within three months, the first place I worked was fine. I asked them for my salary the first month, and they said they wouldn’t give it to me until their father returned because he had to pay me. They claimed their father would return the following month, which was the third month, the same thing happened the following month. So I assumed they were saving it for me, in my opinion.
I began asking for my salary the third month their father had returned, but they refused to give me a response or to take any action. Because their mother was ill, they began removing my blood.
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“I initially assumed it was normal because you had to take tests every three months to make sure you were okay at the time you worked at an Arab’s house.” However, it started to stay that way.
I learned that the same nurse who was taking their mother kept removing my blood without taking me to the hospital. Oluwagbenga, who is a native of Kabba in Kogi State, said in an interview that he refused to let them take my blood and that is when the beating began.
She explained that her efforts to get help were unsuccessful in various ways.
I called my agent, who later found out he was a prisoner there, and we called back. There was no way I could leave because I was locked up, so I tried to run.
The door was unlocked because I was inside the house the day I attempted to escape. Because I was watching the person who was going to pick me up, I wasn’t aware that they were monitoring me. When did they double-crossed me at that point? I was beaten until I was unconscious.
She claimed that the only reason they allowed me to use my phone was because they were taking care of their sick mother so that they could call and check in on her because my SIM card changed every month. As a result, I didn’t have a stable SIM card at the time.
Abike Dabiri-Erewa, the leader of the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM), praised Oluwagbenga for her bravery and survival, citing her as one of the “lucky ones,” as well as the many others who had perished in the desert or the Mediterranean Sea while some of the victims remained untraceable.
Dabiri-Erewa advised young Nigerians to always look for safe and legal travel routes and that irregular immigration was equivalent to “voluntary suicide.“
Source: Channels TV
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