Cameroonian migrant share their tale at Cyprus 'human library'

Inside a vintage-style Cypriot cafe, 18-year-old Ibrahima Yonga recounts to a stranger how he escaped the Boko Haram group in Cameroon and spent months at sea to reach Europe.

Seated at tables nearby, a Palestinian, a Congolese and a Sudanese also share their tales with members of the public, against a soothing background of light acoustic music.

A Cypriot non-governmental organisation had invited them to the cafe in Nicosia's old town to become "human books" for the evening.

To add a human touch to an often complex and troubling news story, it invited eight people from the Mediterranean island's around 6,000 refugees and 2,500 asylum seekers to tell their stories.

Founded in Denmark in 2000, the Human Library's motto is "to build a positive framework for conversations that can challenge stereotypes and prejudices through dialogue.

"The Human Library is a place where real people are on loan to readers," it says.

Cyprus has since 2009 hosted events at which participants can consult not a book but a fellow human being with an experience to share.

The library aims to add a new perspective, said Cypriot volunteer Margarita Kapsou, who shuttled between tables to make sure guests rotate every half an hour.

On a chart on the wall, green bits of cardboard showed which human books had become available, as volunteer translators offered to be "human dictionaries".

- 'Really intense' -

After Yonga escaped his Boko Haram captors -- whom he describes as "brutal" -- he fled Cameroon by fishing boat, leaving his family behind, before boarding a larger ship.

"The captain took care of us and we didn't pay anything," he said. "Some were working on the ship. They gave me first aid."

"One day, the captain put us in touch with another ship that took us to Cyprus."

Inside a vintage-style Cypriot cafe, 18-year-old Ibrahima Yonga recounts to a stranger how he escaped the Boko Haram group in Cameroon and spent months at sea to reach Europe.

Seated at tables nearby, a Palestinian, a Congolese and a Sudanese also share their tales with members of the public, against a soothing background of light acoustic music.

A Cypriot non-governmental organisation had invited them to the cafe in Nicosia's old town to become "human books" for the evening.

To add a human touch to an often complex and troubling news story, it invited eight people from the Mediterranean island's around 6,000 refugees and 2,500 asylum seekers to tell their stories.

Founded in Denmark in 2000, the Human Library's motto is "to build a positive framework for conversations that can challenge stereotypes and prejudices through dialogue.

"The Human Library is a place where real people are on loan to readers," it says.

Cyprus has since 2009 hosted events at which participants can consult not a book but a fellow human being with an experience to share.

The library aims to add a new perspective, said Cypriot volunteer Margarita Kapsou, who shuttled between tables to make sure guests rotate every half an hour.

On a chart on the wall, green bits of cardboard showed which human books had become available, as volunteer translators offered to be "human dictionaries".

- 'Really intense' -

After Yonga escaped his Boko Haram captors -- whom he describes as "brutal" -- he fled Cameroon by fishing boat, leaving his family behind, before boarding a larger ship.

"The captain took care of us and we didn't pay anything," he said. "Some were working on the ship. They gave me first aid."

"One day, the captain put us in touch with another ship that took us to Cyprus."

Some of the evening's "readers" said they had feared the experience would be voyeuristic, but were surprised by how uninhibited most of the storytellers were.

"Sometimes you feel bad because you don't know what to do," 16-year-old school student Alexandra said. But it's a "chance to hear the truth".

And storytellers said sharing their tales offered some relief.

Telling his story was "liberating", Kamal said, adding he much preferred "constructive" chats to expressions of pity.

Yonga found the evening challenging, but said it was part of a process to get his life back on track. "All I want is a normal life, wherever it is," he said.