News from Yonas

Plan 1
Texte à l’écran :
May 2019. French aid worker Jérôme meets Yonas, a refugee from Eritrea, in Libya.
The text messages they send each other are an account of Yonas’ journey to Europe.
Plan 2
voix off Yonas :
Hello doctor Jirom, how are you ? The network is very weak. Maybe today or tomorrow, we’ll arrive, I hope, maybe, I’m not sure but...

Plan 3
Voix-off Jérôme :
Yonas was born in Eritrea in 1991. Like most Eritreans I met in Libya, he’d fled the dictatorship in his country and compulsory military service the United Nations has described as “akin to slavery”.

Plan 4

Voix-off Jérôme :
I met him in May 2019 in Dhar-el-Jebel detention centre in the mountain, south of Tripoli. I was with Médecins Sans Frontières, which had just begun giving medical consultations in the centre. I exchanged phone numbers with several detainees. For migrants in Libya, owning a smartphone is often the only way they can maintain contact with their families, but also people they call their “helpers”: aid workers, activists and journalists who do what they can to help them or to obtain information.


Plan 5

Texte à l’écran :
02 June 2019

Voix-off Jérôme
Shortly after I met Yonas, we started texting each other information.

Texte à l’écran :
Yonas
Be secret Jerome
Its difficult for us
Jérôme
Of course.
Yonas
The manager threatened us
to divide and separate
in two small halls,
because he knows we are using
phones and contacted with
our helpers.
Yonas
We are become weak from time
to time.
Yonas
We are really
frustrated jirom.
I do not know where we go,
what we will do.

Plan 6

Voix Off Jérôme
I left Libya, but stayed in phone contact with Yonas and other detainees. The ones who have smartphones post videos on social media of protests they hold inside the prison. They use tomato sauce and red pepper to write slogans on their mattresses.


Sous titre(chant des détenus) :
We have a message
For all our sisters and brothers!
We can’t hear your voices anymore!
Are you here for us?
The world has turned its back on us.
Please! Shout for us in the hope the world will listen and come to our aid.
We are betrothed to Death, so pray for us before the nuptials arrive!

Plan 7

Voix Off Jérôme
Some other detainees tell me about 30 have escaped. Yonas is one of them.

Plan 8

Texte à l’écran :
03 March 2020

Voix Off Jérôme
Five months later, I’m back in Libya, and I manage to re-establish contact with him.
Texte à l’écran :
Yonas
I have escaped from Dhar-el-Jebel
Jérôme
Oh great!
I just came back to Libya.
I’m in Tripoli now.
Yonas
Seriously you are in tripoli
Jérôme
Yes since a few days!
Yonas
Ok, take care
tripoli is not good .
Jérôme
It’s ok.
Maybe we could try
to meet somewhere
if it’s not dangerous for you?
Yonas
No, it is hard
a lot of stop gates,
I am near Sabratha.
We are waiting for departure.
I think it is dangerous.
For you.
Jérôme
Are there many migrants with you waiting for boats?
Yonas
Too many. 100 eritreans,
also 30 from other citizens
like Nigeria
Jérôme
Be careful.
The sea also can be dangerous.
Yonas
I hope I will meet you again in europe !!!
Don't forget me !!!

Plan 9

Voix Off Jérôme
While he waits for the boat to be ready and the sea to be calm, Yonas worries about the position of the rescue vessels.

Voix off Yonas :
Please text me if you have any information about that, just message me, dear.

Plan 10

Voix Off Jérôme
I tell him the Ocean Viking, the vessel chartered by SOS Méditerranée and Médecins Sans Frontières, is blocked in France. Italy and Malta are using the Covid pandemic to obstruct rescue operations. But another rescue vessel, the Alan Kurdi, is on its way to Libya.

Plan 11

Texte à l’écran :
01 April 2020

Voix Off Yonas :
Hello Jirom, how are you ? You ok ? About you. I hope you’re well from the virus. I’m too interested … and optimistic… Waiting for a long month here. That’s why I’m interested in Alan Kurdi. I hope it will be the last time for us. If we arrive one time that means.

Plan 12

Voix Off Jérôme :
A few weeks later, Yonas stops answering his phone. It must be because he’s at sea.

Plan 13

Texte à l’écran :
06 may 2020

Voix Off Yonas
Hello doctor Jirom, how are you, I’m Yonas. We’re in big trouble, doctor Jirom. 3 days we’re in Malta waters. Turned us back to Tunisian waters. Because we finished petrol. We’re in big trouble. Now we are in Tunisia. Some fishing vessel brought us to Tunisia. So we’re in quarantine in Tunisia now. We need help.

Voix Off Jérôme :
Yonas is exhausted. He says he left Libya three days ago, at 4 in the morning. 50 people were on board: 40 Eritreans, including a baby, two Nigerians, two Senegalese, one Guinean and five Pakistanis. The fishing boat towed them about 6 miles off the Tunisian coast and disappeared North. They managed to get themselves to shore before being picked up by the Tunisian coast guard.

This well-organized return may have been orchestrated by the Maltese authorities.

Plan 14

Texte à l’écran :
27 June 2020

Texte à l’écran :
Yonas
Yesterday I crossed again
to Libya with three friends.
Jérôme
Wow! You must tell me how you did!
Yonas
We walked at night
in desert to avoid
military posts.
Then we went to the
same smuggler in Zuwara.
We negotiated and
he agreed to take us again[
on a boat for free.

Plan 15

Voix Off Jérôme :
Yonas has stopped answering again.
I’m also in contact with Ishaq, another Eritrean who escaped from Dhar-el-Jebel detention centre. I ask him if he’s had any news from Yonas.

Plan 16

Texte à l’écran :
26 July 2020

Texte à l’écran :
Ishaq
hello mister jeroom
its me Ishaq
yonas is in journey today
Ishaq
may God with him
Jérôme
Do you have more information
on yonas boat
so I can tell
alarm phone?
Ishaq
They’re 95.
They departed the day before yesterday.
Ishaq
Their engine is broken
but their phone still works.
Ishaq
It’s a wooden boat.
They’re in distress.

Plan 18

Voix Off Jérôme
Using the information Ishaq has given me, I contact Alarm Phone — a hotline that puts pressure on Maltese and Italian rescue centres to launch rescue operations.
Yonas’ boat manages to reach Malta’s Search and Rescue zone. But for hours, the Maltese authorities do not respond to calls.

Plan 19

Texte à l’écran :
27 July 2020

Texte à l’écran :
Jérôme
Hi yonas how are you?
Please send news when you can!
Yonas
I am safe in malta
It was difficult
Thanks to God, finally I have safe my life.

Plan 20

Voix Off Yonas :
Hi Jerome how are you, I’m glad, I’m so happy, I thank you so much. We are in quarantine now…

Plan 21

Texte à l’écran :
31 August 2020

Texte à l’écran :
Ishaq
Yonas was catch by the police of malta
On the airport
Jérôme
He was trying to take a flight to another country?
Ishaq
Yes to Italy.
Jérôme
I heard Yonas is in prison for 6 months.
Ishaq
6 months it’s what they do
Here in Malta
I feel very sorry for yonas.
As you know we expect
more freedom in europe, not to go again in close camp.
Some times am thinking am not in europe.