A Sudanese poet predicts his own fate at Mediterranean. Abd al-Wahhab Muhammad Yusef, aka Abdel Wahab Latinos, died when a boat packed with African immigrants sank into the sea after setting off from Libya on its way to Europe.
Abdel Wahab Latinos was known among the young poetry fans in Sudan. The hardships he had endured in his life cast a dark shadow over his poetry:
We will flee from our home, we will flee towards exile, but migration is also cruel, it’s unbearable! It will absorb our souls inevitably – Abdel Wahab Latinos
That was the last poem written by the Sudanese poet, Abdel Wahab Latinos, before he lost his life at sea, along with 45 others who died during a terrible shipwreck on 16 August.
Abdel Wahab Latinos was born in a poor family in Manwashi, Southern Darfur. He studied in the University of Khartoum, and he took one bachelor’s degree from the Faculty of Economics. But still, he failed to see any future for himself. And his last resort was Libya, a gateway through which masses of African victims proceed to brave all perils in the hope of getting safely to European shores. Victims of false hope and criminal human traffickers.
European Migrant Crisis
The European migrant crisis, also known as the refugee crisis, is a period characterised by high numbers of people arriving in the European Union (EU) overseas from across the Mediterranean Sea or overland through Southeast Europe.
The number of deaths at sea rose to record levels in April 2015, when five boats carrying approximately 2,000 migrants to Europe sank in the Mediterranean Sea, with the combined death toll estimated at more than 1,200 people.
The shipwrecks took place during conflicts and refugee crises in several Greater Middle Eastern and African countries, which increased the total number of forcibly displaced people worldwide at the end of 2014 to almost 60 million, the highest level since World War II.
To the memory of Abd al-Wahhab Muhammad Yusef, a Sudanese poet who drowned together with 45 people, a week ago in the Mediterranean, after being attacked by the Libyan Coast Guard.
