‘They ordered me to undress’: From Nigeria to Italy, surviving rape

Naomi Iwelu was able to reach Italy but not before enduring unimaginable trauma and violence.

Twenty-five-year-old Naomi Iwelu is now settled, living in a room in the centre of Catania, Sicily. Here she recounts the robberies, betrayals and rape she experienced on her journey from Benin, Nigeria.

It was her mother’s death, four years after her father’s, that prompted Naomi to quit school and leave Benin in 2018. As the eldest of six children, all now orphans, continuing her education beyond secondary school was an impossibility.

“We couldn’t afford the expenses to continue my studies,” Naomi tells Al Jazeera, “so I started working in bars, restaurants and cleaning.”

However, the family’s living conditions deteriorated. Leaving Nigeria to start a new life in Europe became an ever more considered option.

“I got in touch with a friend who was living in Libya at the time,” she says. “We had attended the same school, but we had lost contact with each other. I found her contact on Facebook. She was the one who convinced me to leave Nigeria and said that she would help me to do so.”