It’s a warm September afternoon and we’re sitting at a refugee center in Munich. With us are Osman and Mohamed, two Somali asylum seekers who have been living in Germany for three and eleven months, respectively. As they remember the journey they endured to get here, Mohamed is much more talkative while Osman is more reserved.

Akberet’s journey from Eritrea to Europe started in 2012 when she left Eritrea to find work in Sudan, where she ended up living for nine months. Originally she had no plans to leave, but life there proved to be too difficult. After watching many others depart for Europe, she decided to take her chances and join them.

Baylon, in his early 20s, was born in Sudan to Eritrean refugees. While in Sudan, he got into a conflict with the law authorities who threatened to deport him to Eritrea. He escaped prison, and within two days he had started on the perilous journey to Libya.

In 2012 Rahel left Eritrea for Sudan, where she lived for four years working menial jobs to raise money for the journey. She lived on the bare minimum and struggled to make ends meet. In 2014, with a one year old child and another one on the way, she decided to embark on the infamous, arduous journey through the Sahara to the Mediterranean.

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“Ever since the journey I keep asking myself, was it worth it? If my life had been lost in one of these ordeals, Allah would have held me accountable,” laments Mohammed, an Eritrean refugee living in Germany.

Ibrahim Abdi is 16 years old and was born in the city of Jijiga in the Somali region of Ethiopia. He decided to take the hazardous journey to Europe to pursue a better life.

Jama has just received word from the Swedish Migration Agency that he will be deported to Italy, where he originally registered as an asylum seeker. Like many refugees disappointed by the limited opportunities and provisions in Italy, he chose to try his luck by traveling north. Now his luck has run out.

Irregular migration,  tahriib in Somali, has a horrible effect on the communities that are left behind, both financially and psychologically. This is less discussed by the community or in the media. Families suffer in silence and rarely have the opportunity to talk about the effects of Tahriib on those left at home. 

Faisal was living in Saudi Arabia with his family when he found himself on the wrong side of the law and was sent back to Eritrea. No more than six months after his arrival, and at the age of 17, he decided to take the journey to Europe.

Zeregabir is a man who’s been to hell and back and lived to tell the story. Over the course of his journey through the Libyan Desert, he visited the brink of death repeatedly, returning each time barely alive.