Nigerian migrant Sa’Eed Abubakar met Darrin Zammit Lupi on a search and rescue ship on the open seas last week. This is his story.

An eruption of gunfire one evening in a small village in Borno State, in northeastern Nigeria, changed the life of 27-year-old Sa’eed Abubakar forever.

It was 2013 and amid a deafening confusion of gunshots, explosions, burning wood and blood-curdling screams, he frantically made his way to the house he shared with his elderly parents.

Mr Abubakar was shocked to find them dead in a pool of blood and a house that was rapidly burning to cinders.

But there was no time to mourn or despair. Darting from cover to cover to keep out of sight of the attacking Boko Haram Islamist militants, he made his way into the nearby hills.

Linking up with fellow villagers doing the same thing, he hid for 12 days before daring to return to the ashes that marked his home.

The ruins and the rotting bodies caused an overpowering sense of grief but Mr Abubakar also felt grateful that his three sisters and brothers were alive.

There was nothing left for him there – only the fear that the Boko Haram militants may return to massacre the survivors – so he joined what has become an exodus of thousands across the African continent, fleeing war and persecution.

Mr Abubakar made his way to Kano to seek refuge in the ancient trading city in the Saharan region of northern Nigeria. However, the militants were not far behind. As they vented their anger on hapless civilians following setbacks on the battlefield, attacks and suicide bombings became commonplace in Kano and once again Mr Abubakar felt he had no choice but to flee from Nigeria.

He crossed the border into neighbouring Niger and did odd jobs in a friend’s photo laboratory outlet. Life was hard – what he really wanted to do was study pharmacy. He saved what he could and by last April had enough money to get to Libya.

“For three days we drove. The journey was terrible,” he re-counted as he sat on a rescue ship in the Mediterranean last week. The smugglers took him to Sabha, central Libya, where he met more smugglers to take him to Tripoli. “It is a terrible human trade.”

27-year-old Sa’eed Abubakar on board The Bourbon Argos last week. Photo: Darrin Zammit Lupi

As he relives the memory of the days leading up to that leg of the journey and the land voyage, his eyes portray a trauma, the wounds of which are raw.

“In Sabha, the Libyan smugglers find you because you’re black. They know why you’re there. I paid 400 dinar [about €260]. I was treated so badly, so humiliated.”

From Sabha he was squeezed into a car with 27 people that set off on a four-day drive to Tripoli during which vehicles were switched 10 times.

Once in Tripoli, Mr Abubakar got a poorly paid job in a car wash, but the Libyan owner treated him well, unlike most other Libyans there. Yet he knew he had to move on. “In Libya there is no future. Even for Libyans, there is no future. It’s a jungle. When I entered Libya, my intention was to find a place to live in peace, to study, not to go to Europe,” he insists.

They were sent off to sea, simply being told to head ‘that way’, without any drinking water, food or life jackets

For almost three months, he supplemented his car wash earnings with welding and metal work so he would be able to afford to pay smugglers for the next leg.

“I talked to a black man who had connections with the Arab smugglers. You pay 1,300 dinars [around €850]. We were taken to a camp in Zuwarah with no water, no edible food. They beat you all the time, they take your money, they take your phone, they don’t let you out of the camp.”

For 15 days he and his colleagues lived in that hellhole. Then, last Thursday, the smugglers told them they would leave that night on a big boat. Under cover of darkness, they were led to a sandy beach where they found an unassembled rubber dinghy with wooden flooring. “We had to inflate and assemble it ourselves, and then carry it into the water. I had never been on a boat before, I don’t know how to swim. I felt I would die at sea. So I prayed.”

Some Bangladeshis turned and fled and the rest were beaten and forced to climb into the dinghy at gunpoint. One man was shown how to operate the outboard engine and use a rudimentary compass. They were sent off to sea, simply being told to head “that way”, without any drinking water, food or life jackets.

After some six hours at sea, Mr Abubakar spotted what he thought might be a ship. Together with some others, he convinced the helmsman to head towards it.

“I felt very happy that my prayer was heard. There was a lot of shouting and cries of joy but also some confusion because we didn’t know if this was a rescue ship.”

Luckily, it was. The Bourbon Argos, a search and rescue ship deployed by international medical non-governmental organisation Médecins Sans Frontières, had been operating in the Mediterranean for months.

Crying and weak, Mr Abubakar was the last to climb onto the ship. “Now I’m so happy to be alive,” he recounted the next morning as the Bourbon Argos headed towards Sicily.

“I can’t express my feelings. I’d like to go to Germany, study pharmacy, start a family.”

Over and over, he thanked God for saving his life, for giving him an opportunity to face another challenge, one he relished, judging by the upbeat and confident mood he was in as he disembarked from the rescue ship in Trapani on Sunday morning.

• Watch the video on timesofmalta.com.