Like many young Eritrean men, Yohannes first sought asylum in Ethiopia and lived in a refugee camp there. Nine months later he was granted the opportunity to study at Mekelle University in Ethiopia, majoring in a three year Business Management Program. Upon graduation, unable to secure a job as a refugee, he was forced to go back to the refugee camp where he stayed for a year. Frustrated over waiting, he decided to embark on the journey to Europe.

While living in Somalia, Abdisalan found himself having to choose between two fires. War had broken out in his home area that resulted in his his father being killed by Al Shabaab militants right before his eyes. Having nowhere else to go, he decided to flee Somalia. He embarked on the journey despite knowledge that it would certainly present its own problems.

“Before I got abducted, I had no intention of going to Europe or America,” Filmon says. “Since my training was mainly within electronics repair and IT, my hope was to work in Uganda or Angola.”

28 year old Bashiir is quietly seated in the room of a refugee center in Berlin. His demeanor is that of a person who feels out of place and isolated. His towering figure is hunched in a state of resignation, as if giving in to a battle.

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.