Somali migrant Mohamed Abdi Awale endured horrors on an ill-fated journey across Africa to seek a better life in the West, but he’s determined to try again one day, even aiming for the U.S. despite increasing restrictions.
Awale is one of 165 Somali migrants recently repatriated after being detained in Libya, where the International Organization for Migration says those caught on journeys to Europe face “unacceptable and inhumane conditions.”
Awale undertook a more than 5,000-kilometer (3,100-mile) journey, leaving Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, to cross Kenya, Uganda, South Sudan and Sudan.
He was captured by smugglers near the Sudan-Libyan border and taken to the Sahara oasis town of Kufra, where captors filmed him being tortured in a bid to extract a ransom from his family.
“Torture became normal,” Awale said. “If you failed to pay, they beat you until you fainted. Some people lost their minds. Others didn’t survive.”
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