Abdisamad was living in Hargeisa, Somalia with his mother and four siblings and was happy and content with his life. When he was 17 he began receiving messages and pictures from friends who had gone to Europe, telling him about the wonderful life they had. Abdisamad and some friends decided to join them and contacted a smuggler. They had heard stories about the dangers and hardships on the route to Libya but did not take them seriously.
“One can only fear something that one has experienced. But if it’s just a story, no one pays it any attention. I thought I could cross easily.”
When he was a small child, his sister had gone on the same journey and perished in the Mediterranean. Abdisamad felt uneasy when he thought about her but did not believe he would share the same fate. He contacted a smuggler and started the journey through Ethiopia and Sudan. They did not tell their families because they would have stopped them from going.
The journey through Ethiopia was easy but they had to cross the border to Sudan on foot. It was a long and hard walk and their feet were bruised and bleeding. The smugglers promised to take them to hospital but when they reached the Sudanese capital they were instead locked up in a smugglers’ compound. Abdisamad decided he had had enough and escaped from the place. He intended to go to the police but was caught again by the smugglers.
“I was waiting for them to take me to the police so I could return to my country, but suddenly I saw the guys I’d escaped from. They started insulting me. I was in shock and wanted to run away but I didn’t because that might get me into more trouble.”
From now on he was a prisoner of the smugglers. The situation became worse in Libya, where he and his fellow travellers were beaten and tortured to force their families to send money. He called his mother who had to sell a piece of land to send the USD 5,500 that the smugglers demanded. Abdisamad says he survived because of that land. After having paid, he was allowed to continue the journey to the seacoast near Tripoli. There, he had to pay another USD 2,500 to get on a boat to Europe.
They departed at night, 107 people on board a small inflatable dinghy. In the morning they had lost their direction and called Italian ships for help. But they were still in Libyan waters and a Libyan ship came and picked them up. They were taken back to Tripoli and put into detention. The Somali ambassador visited the detention centre and offered repatriation to Somalia. Some of them hesitated because they were still thinking of escaping and going to sea again. This was when Abdisamad remembered what had happened to his sister.
“When I heard people saying they’d go back again and look for a smuggler, that’s when I remembered I’d lost my sister on that road. I thought, if you go back you might die there like your sister and your mum will lose you too. So I decided to stay and not to try again. I thought, you are still young. Just go back to your mum while you still can breathe.”
His family gave him a warm welcome when he returned. They had not heard from him for months and feared he had been lost at sea like his sister. Today, Abdisamad is raising awareness among youth in Hargeisa, warning them about the dangers in Libya. He says it was an eye-opening journey.