Conversations with Correspondents: Sally Hayden on Libya’s detention centers

Sally Hayden, an Irish journalist focused on migration, conflict and humanitarian crises, will discuss her new book “My Fourth Time, We Drowned: Seeking Refuge on the World’s Deadliest Migration Route” at a virtual event at 12 p.m. on April 29.

With unprecedented access to people currently inside Libyan detention centers, Hayden’s book is based on interviews with hundreds of refugees and migrants who tried to reach Europe and found themselves stuck in Libya once the EU started funding interceptions in 2017. It is an intimate portrait of life for these detainees, as well as a condemnation of NGOs and corruption within the United Nations, which represent a collective abdication of international standards that will echo throughout history. But most importantly, My Fourth Time, We Drowned shines a light on the resilience of humans: how refugees and migrants locked up for years fall in love, support each other through the hardest times and carry out small acts of resistance in order to survive in a system that wants them to be silent and disappear.

Hayden is currently the Africa correspondent for the Irish Times. Her work on Libya has been featured by the New York Times, the Guardian, Channel 4 News, CNN International, Al Jazeera, TIME, BBC, Die ZEIT, Der Spiegel, the Sunday Times, the Telegraph, ITV News, and other outlets across the world. She has reported on other international stories for the Washington Post, the Financial Times Magazine, and the Thomson Reuters Foundation. In 2019, Sally was named as one of Forbes ’30 Under 30’ in Media in Europe, in part because of her work on refugee issues.

Hayden will discuss her new book and reporting from Africa during a one-hour program moderated by Al-Monitor’s Elizabeth Hagedorn. This event is hosted by the International Correspondents Committee.