Mabel Emmanuel and Steven Ekhiator began a romance in a most unlikely place – detention camp for African migrants in Libya.
Theirs is a story of hope amidst the chaos.
It all started when Mabel asked to use Steven’s mobile phone to call her mother. She needed to urgently get money.
Upon hearing from a tearful Mabel that her mother could not send the money, he paid off her debts.
He told the BBC News Pidgin: “I must confess – I fell in love.”
Skip forward a good few months and Mabel gave birth to the couple’s son, David, in the detention camp.
The couple are among 401 Nigerians who returned home on two government-sponsored flights, overnight, on 5 December.
Speaking with the BBC News Pidgin shortly after they arrived Nigeria on 5 December, she said she was happy to be back home and looking towards a bright future raising her son with her partner.
“Libya is a terrible country, I won’t advise anyone to think about the place, or talk about going,” Steven added.
In the last ten months, over 4,000 citizens have been repatriated to Nigeria from Libya.
Many West Africans risk their lives on flimsy boats, trekking through the Sahara to get to Europe in search of greener pastures.
It’s a journey that neither Steven nor Mabel ever sees themselves embarking on again.
But Steven now has no regrets because he met Mabel.
“You can’t determine your wife-to-be, where you can find her, it can just happen suddenly,” he says.
Source: BBC
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Eiii! This guy paaa: you mean you could still manage to have an erection and subsequently impregnate a girl under such conditions? Detention camp? Sometimes you don't even get water to bath for several days so you can imagine! Well done oooo!
Yes this couple must stay together as the guy finds any job to do for a meantime. This guy can do construction work by carrying mortar or any menial work to put the marital status together .We should know that not everyone has a destiny to travel abroad and these kids were lucky , else the Libyans must have sold them for their body parts to be harvested as they die out.
At least u are wise to say u wont go there again unlike some Ghanaians who still says they will choose Libya over their home country. God help u raise this child in his ways