Somalia - When 21-year-old Fartuun* left Somaliland 15 months ago, she weighed 60 kilos. Today, at 25 kilos, she is a pale reflection of the vibrant girl who left home in 2013 to seek her fortune in Europe. But now she’s home safe after an ordeal that took her from her village to Saudi Arabia, Egypt and eventually, Libya.

“Fartuun made the return trip to Somaliland from Libya with an IOM medical escort, because she is paralyzed from her waist down and is not able to walk without support,” said IOM Libya’s Dr. Aladin Abukashim.

Her rescue is as remarkable as the rigors she endured during her journey – which included riding in a car trunk part of the way, before travelling by sea to the Arabian Peninsula and then across the desert to Egypt and Libya.

Like thousands of young Africans, the high school graduate and young mother thought she would find work as a cleaner in Europe and earn enough to pay her way back to school, so that she could realize her dream of becoming a teacher.

In 2014 over 5,700 Somalis with similar dreams risked their lives at sea to reach Italy in small boats from North Africa – a journey migration experts consider to be one of the most dangerous on earth.

An unknown number of Somali, Eritrean and Ethiopian migrants were among the 3,279 migrants who died in the Mediterranean, according to Fatal Journeys: Tracking Lives Lost during Migration, a report published by IOM’s ongoing Missing Migrants Project (mmp.iom.int).

“We thought she was joking when she said she wanted to travel to Europe. Even though our family might not have everything in the world, we could have definitely taken better care of her than those men in Libya who took advantage of her,” said Suleiman**, Fartuun’s brother.

Her ordeal began in 2013, when she fell in with a group of young men operating a human smuggling ring moving young people from Somaliland to Saudi Arabia. The trip to Libya took about two weeks, traveling the whole way with Somalis.

But in Libya things began to fall apart. She tried to work odd jobs to pay for passage to Europe, but with civil war raging across the country, safety – not income – became her top priority. The smugglers who had taken her to Libya grew impatient, finally making her their prisoner.

“They confiscated her travel documents and threatened to report her to the authorities if she tried to escape. She was held against her will for six months, repeatedly abused and eventually fell seriously ill,” said an IOM Libya staffer.

Fartuun’s case was brought to IOM’s attention when her mother, who lives in Somaliland, contacted IOM after she listened to an IOM radio show that draws attention to the dangers of irregular migration. The radio show, which is funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Justice and Public Security, is part of an information campaign that sensitizes Somali youth to the dangers of irregular migration.

It took IOM staffers over a month to find her in a crowded Tripoli hospital, injured and close to death. She also was responsible for an enormous medical bill, which she could not pay. In collaboration with local police, IOM had her moved to another hospital for her protection.

IOM offices in Libya and Somalia then arranged temporary travel documents for her and organized her evacuation from Libya last week, flying through Istanbul, then on to Somaliland, where she was reunited with her family in Hargeisa.

As thrilled as the young mother was to be home, the IOM team was just as gratified.

IOM Somalia Chief of Mission Gerry Waite said: “As the Missing Migrants Project shows, thousands of young migrants from the Horn of Africa – Ethiopians, Somalis, Eritreans - are exposing themselves to these terrible risks and feeding a humanitarian crisis. Increases in overall numbers of arrivals and deaths at sea in the Mediterranean and Horn of Africa underscore the high demand for smuggling services and the complex and profitable criminal networks that move people across borders. Inter-regional commitment and action are urgently required to protect migrants.”

Fartuun’s assisted voluntary return was funded by IOM Libya’s NOAH II regional project, which responds to shifting migratory flows and increasing migrant vulnerabilities. NOAH II is sponsored by the US Department of State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM).

*name changed to protect her identity

**name changed to protect his identity

For more information please contact IOM Somalia

Julia Hartlieb

Tel.: +254 731 988 846

Email: jhartlieb@iom.int

or

Feisal Muhamud

Tel.: +254 721 290 074

Email: famuhamud@iom.int