Zakaria Hussein from Hargeisa was in high school when he like many other Somali youths had the idea of travelling to Europe. Many friends had already gone to Europe and were encouraging him to join them. With two friends he left for Ethiopia.
Going through Ethiopia the conditions of the journey gradually worsened. They got very little food and Zakaria suspected the smugglers wanted to starve them so they would not have the strength to escape. In Sudan the situation got even worse and he started to doubt that he would ever reach his destination.
“My fear and worry were that I would never reach the place I wanted safely while they were driving the car like crazy. Will I and the others reach it safely? Will we get a safe place where we can all rest? Will we all reach our destination? That’s what I was thinking and what was worrying me.”
From Khartoum they were taken to the Libyan border and handed over to traffickers. The journey continued for several days through the Libyan desert. The traffickers were extremely brutal and high on drugs all the time.
When the car had an accident they simply abandoned the injured to die in the desert. One shocking incident was the killing of a girl who had fallen sick and could not continue the journey.
“We had to leave, and the girl said she couldn’t go on the trip. They said they’d call a doctor who’d treat her. He wasn’t a real doctor but a trafficker sent to give her a lethal injection. She was injected right in front of our eyes. We thought she would be treated. After two or three minutes the girl died.”
They reached the smugglers’ camp where they were ordered to call their families to send money for their release. During the 20 days it took for the money to arrive, Zakaria was constantly beaten.
Finally, he was taken to the coast and was told to get on board a small inflatable boat. It was overloaded and after six days at sea they were in a desperate situation. A Libyan ship came to the rescue and the passengers were taken back to Libya and put into detention. Conditions were horrible. The guards were brutal and Zakaria became sick because of poor hygiene.
When the Somali Ambassador visited them and offered repatriation to Somalia, Zakaria was happy to comply. He is now back home, warning other youths about the dangers of the Libyan smuggling route.