Ghanaian actress Louisa Adinkra has opened up about a difficult experience she encountered while attempting to travel abroad in search of better opportunities, revealing that she was allegedly taken to Damascus, Syria, instead of Spain and later found herself trapped in a situation she described as human trafficking.

Speaking in an interview with fellow actress and media personality Emelia Brobbey, Louisa Adinkra, who is known for her roles in Ghanaian movies, recounted how the journey she believed would take her to Spain turned into a painful ordeal.

According to the actress, she only discovered after arriving in Damascus that she had been deceived and was allegedly being exploited through a slave trade network. She said the experience was extremely difficult and at one point feared she might not survive.

She said: “I said I was going to Spain, but they took me to Damascus. I realised I was sold for slave trading when I got there. Honestly, it wasn’t easy. Only God knows how I got back to Ghana. It got to a point that I called my younger sister not to worry if they called and heard I was dead, because I was really suffering. It wasn’t easy.”

Louisa Adinkra claimed the incident happened between 2007 and 2008, a period she said she later learned was associated with intense human trafficking activities.

“The Arabs do not really value Blacks. That was somewhere around 2007 to 2008. That was the time slave trade was intensely going on. But I didn’t know about it,” she added.

The actress further described the conditions she allegedly witnessed, claiming that several people from different countries were kept together in the same location. She also alleged that some victims suffered severe abuse during the period.

“It was a very big house that they put all of us into — Bangladeshis, Ethiopians, all around Africa. We were only two Ghanaians there.They can slap someone for blood to ooze from the person’s ears. One Ethiopian girl abused drugs and died the next day. They just took the corpse and threw it in the desert.”

Reflecting on the experience, Louisa Adinkra said the ordeal changed her outlook on life and shaped her decision to pursue acting after eventually returning to Ghana.

“What has life not shown me? I have seen everything in life. I entered the movie industry when I finally got back to Ghana,” she said.

Louisa Adinkra later became part of Ghana’s movie industry, where she gained recognition through her performances in local films. Her revelation adds to growing conversations about the dangers of irregular migration, deceptive travel arrangements and the exploitation of young Africans seeking opportunities abroad.