“I had never dreamed of leaving. Neither to Europe, nor to France, nor even of turning my back on Conakry. I loved my parents and I could not imagine leaving them one day. And if I had to do it again , after everything I've been through, I probably wouldn't do it again.” These few words, taken from the book I didn't want to leave to be published by Grasset on January 15, sounds like a confession.
“This testimony is also a recognition, full of thanks for those who welcomed me to Sauve. I would like readers to understand that we do not leave our country only for political or economic reasons”insists Abdoulaye Soumah who shed tears over the pages.
Threatened with death, thrown in prison and deported
Threatened with death, thrown in prison, and pushed out of his country, the young Conakryka delivers a disturbing, poignant, sincere story. Abdoulaye Soumah retraces without emphasis, but in simple words, the terrible journey of an exile which brought him from Conakry to the Nîmes station where he survived among drunkards and drug addicts after 18 months of wandering across the Sahel , Mali, Algeria, Libya. Rape, beatings, fraud, confinement in unsanitary jails, the young migrant pays the high price of a path to freedom: a terrible shipwreck takes away Fatoumata, 17 years old, his beloved who does not hesitate to leaving everything to accompany her, dramatically carried away by the waves while he clings for all he can to the rope of an old inflatable canoe which is trying to reach the Libyan beach of Karaboli on the Italian island of Lampedusa.
The chapters follow one another, revealing over the lines, but without ever falling into pathos, a comfortable youth, tenderly loved by his mother who left him an orphan at 20, hated by his stepmother, hated and hunted by his half-brother who promises him certain death. Abdoulaye Soumah, a brilliant student who sees his mother die in his arms because the emergency doctor refuses to intervene, dreamed of being a doctor to save men.
Dedication on January 24
Based in Sauve, graduated with a CAP in mason and today a construction worker, Abdoulaye, welcomed in October 2023 by the Solidarité migrants Sauve collective, petal of JRS-Welcome, obtained his refugee status before the National Court of Law asylum last May. Appreciated by all and perfectly integrated, he will sign his book on Friday January 24 from 6 p.m. at the Alterlivres bookstore in the Cour des artisans in Sauve.
Midi Libre correspondent: 06 75 93 88 32
