Medina’s search for new beginning

22-year-old Medina was forced to leave the city she knew, since it was controlled by Al-Shabaab. Being imprisoned and in terror, she decided to embark in a new journey in search of protection and a new beginning:

“ I was imprisoned by Al-Shabaab for 15 days and that was the main reason why I left“ I couldn’t stay there anymore, I feared for my life”

In search of better life, Medina was confronted by her worst nightmare whilst travelling through the Sahara desert. She was tortured; raped and endured physical attacks by the human smugglers;

“ I was travelling for 3 months … having no food, being sexually abused and no one willing to help you… You can imagine a young girl without her parents trying to survive ending up in the hands of strangers. These kinds of people are not afraid of anything, they will abuse you sexually and they will imprison you, torture you and they wouldn’t even permit you to eat”.

“ They put us in a camp controlled by men. The women and men were in separate rooms; he used to come to our rooms beat us up separately as he pleased. One day something happened, a fight broke out and the human smuggler shot a young man and as the rest of the young men tried to escape…. He also started shooting at them too. …

The life she imagined in Europe didn’t turned out to be what she expected. After being in Europe for 3 months, Medina is still waiting for her first interview and she is uncertain about what will happen with her case;

“In Europe. I was hoping to find protection and the way it turn up to be, isn’t what I was imagining. There are still a lot of Somalis here in the camp…. In Europe we haven’t found the protection we were seeking and because of the lack of protection from back home we can’t go back…. And if you return back, you will pay the price by torture or they will kill you. I don’t know honestly, we have so many problems. I’ve been here 3 months and I haven’t been called for an interview yet and less to say get a asylum”.