Sally Hayden Longlist Author Interview

How does it feel to be longlisted?

It feels incredible that My Fourth Time, We Drowned was longlisted. It is my first book and I was driven by the desire to collect evidence documenting what the rich world is doing to keep out refugees and migrants at any cost, particularly in North Africa. 

It can be difficult to get a general audience to engage with this topic. To have the book longlisted for such a prestigious prize is very heartening, because it means that more people will read it and learn about the reality we live in.

How did you conduct your research?

I’ve reported on migration-related issues for eight years, travelling to countries like Syria, Iraq, Burkina Faso, Sudan, Rwanda, Nigeria and Sierra Leone, as well as across Europe. This work means that I have met a huge number of people, and others started reaching out to me through social media and other avenues.

The book itself begins with me receiving a Facebook message from a man who was locked up indefinitely inside a Libyan migrant detention centre. From then, in 2018, I spent years in daily contact with a network of sources across many different detention centres, while travelling across much of Africa and Europe, following up leads and verifying what they told me. I also began sharing the messages I received from inside detention centres on Twitter, in a thread that eventually got millions of views. This resulted in even more sources getting in touch with me with information.

What can governments do to prevent similar abuses of refugees in the future?

My reporting shows that governments in the rich world are actually behind many policies and structures that trap refugees and migrants in abusive systems. The rich world is spending huge sums of money to effectively prop up dictatorships and militias in short-sighted efforts to stop migration at any cost, which actually oppress vulnerable people further, increasing the need to leave. We see this on Europe’s borders, but also on the borders of other countries, including the USA and Australia. 

Since 2017, more than 100,000 men, women and children have been caught on the Central Mediterranean Sea trying to reach Europe, and locked up in detention centres that Pope Francis has compared to concentration camps. There, they are subject to a whole host of abuses that the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor has said may count as war crimes and crimes against humanity. Official estimates say that nearly 25,000 people have drowned or gone missing in the Mediterranean Sea since 2014, though the real number may be much larger.

There needs to be some kind of a reckoning, where the rich world faces up to the consequences and implications of its attempts to stop migration. That means a reckoning not just for the politicians but also its citizens, in whose names all of this is being done.

How far do you think there’s a disconnect between what governments say about refugees and how they actually treat them?

There is a huge disconnect. For example, politicians regularly talk about how they want to tackle the business model of human smugglers, but they are not providing safe and legal routes for people who need to reach safety to get there, leaving many desperate people with no other way to escape dangerous situations and claim international protection. This rhetoric also does not extend to going after top smugglers and traffickers. While reporting the book, for example, I attended trials for infamous human smugglers in Ethiopia and found that I was the only observer present - there was no one else there from any embassy, human rights organisation or UN agency.

My book looks at the language politicians and bureaucrats use to talk about migration, and how it is another way of creating a disconnect between the general public’s understanding of what is going on, and the reality of it.

What are you working on next?

I am currently the Africa correspondent for the Irish Times, which I do alongside other freelance reporting. I am also currently working on another book proposal, while updating My Fourth Time, We Drowned ahead of its paperback release next March.