I met Sadeem in the small village of Xaaxi in Somaliland, three dusty hours away from the closest town of Burao. Together with other women and children she sits under a mango tree. Her hands are folded in her colourful cloth, her voice breaking with grief as she speaks. She told me how she woke up one morning to find her worst nightmare come true: the bed of her son Abdulrasheed was empty. The moment she most feared had finally arrived. Abdulrasheed had left the country, just as thousands of other young Somalis had already done. For Abdulrasheed, ‘Tahreeb’ was his only chance for a better life.
‘Tabreeb’ means ‘travel with risk’. After finding her son’s bed empty, Sadeem waited anxiously for weeks for news of her son. She knew from other mother’s in her village how the journey usually took place: Abdulrasheed would first travel on foot for a few days and then carpool to the Ethiopian border. From there he would be taken by people smugglers to Sudan or Libya, where Somali refugees are often detained for weeks until their family can pay a large ransom.
For weeks Sadeem had nightmares thinking of little boats bobbing on the uncertain waters of the Mediterranean. She dreamt of the pictures of the dead, who drown far from islands like Lampedusa. In 2014, Somalis were only two percent of those who crossed the Mediterranean in boats. Out of 500 youth in the village of Xaaxi, 50 youth left in the last year. Of those, 21 have gone missing.
Sadeem's son Abdulrasheed fled Somaliland a couple of weeks ago. Photo: Johanna Mitscherlich/CARE.
A mother grieves
After four weeks, a call came from Libya. It came from ‘Magafe’, the name for an insatiable trafficker, from whom there is no escaping. “They beat my son with an iron rod and put cigarettes out on him while he talked to me on the phone. He cried and begged me to transfer the money. Those men abused him and threatened to kill him,” Sadeem says, her eyes full of sorrow and grief. She received three more calls. Each time her son was mistreated and each time they asked her to send more money to ‘Magafe’. When I asked Sadeem where her son is now, I couldn’t tell if she was saying Australia or Austria. Sadeem barely learned to read and write, and has never travelled far outside her village. Most likely, Sadeem’s son is in Austria. For a grieving mother, the country makes no difference: her son is gone.
They had to pay nearly 18,000 euros for her son to stay alive. They sold their house, their goats, and asked for help from their entire community. “The Magafe know that Somali parents are paying,” says my colleague Hodan Elmi. “There was a case where the family did not pay quickly enough. Their son was beheaded while the parents were on the phone with the traffickers asking for them to delay it.” Somalia is ranked third in the top 10 countries of origin of refugees. About 16,000 Somalis were in EU countries last year, and almost one million live in the neighboring countries of Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti. Abdulrasheed’s story is no exception; quite the contrary. We spoke with university students, parents, and market vendors and asked them what they think the biggest challenge is for their country. The answer was always the same: ‘Tahreeb’. With an unemployment rate of over 70% and ongoing conflict many people see no alternative but to leave the country.
“Many young people would rather die than stay here. They have grown up with violence and displacement, and know nothing else. The decision to take their few belongings and move on is a common one,” says my colleague Hodan. Her journey was made the other way around: born and raised in London, the child of Somali parents, she returned to her mother country ten years ago. The diaspora community of Somalis around the world is large. However hundreds of people come back every year to invest in their land, start businesses, and build schools and roads. The Somali diaspora sends about 1.4 billion euros back home every year- more than all development assistance and direct investment combined.
Sadeem and her family now live here after selling all their belongings to keep Abdulrasheed alive. Photo: Johanna Mitscherlich/CARE.
Disaster for community and country
For Sadeem, there’s little consolation in knowing Abdulrasheed is alive and in a refugee camp. He can’t work and it is not clear if his application will be accepted. Sadeem shows me the little house she has cobbled together from cardboard boxes, wooden sticks and fabrics. “This is all I have now,” she says in a low voice. “I cannot offer anything to my five daughters who live here with me, and I am unable to pay the hospital bills for my sick husband.”
I ask her if she is angry at her son. She shakes her head. “I am extremely sad, but happy he is alive. But he is my son, my child!” Sadeem is very quiet and thoughtful. Her eyes wander over the village and the pastures for sheep and goats. Then she says in a firm voice, “This is not only a disaster for our family, it is a disaster for our entire country. Young people are fleeing war and a lack of opportunities. How are we supposed to build a better future without them here?”