In my country, Somalia, youth migration is an epidemic problem. It could be a legacy or cause of the youth that randomly reached Europe and America encouraging their friends to migrate while sending them good-looking pictures that they took in some parking places of the countries they live in that can't even show the reality of their living standard.
Youth migration causes many factors including unemployment and economic difficulties; the unbalanced, privatized, and under-regulated education system; peer pressure; strong smuggling networks; lack of reliable security; and the overall fragile state institutions that have failed to create hope for the citizens. All these factors contributed to the massively growing illegal migration of Somali youth.
Once upon a time, there was a friend of mine that we used to be village kids in a town. My ambition was to one day be an intellectual and to give back my knowledge to society. At the time, the people of the town who finished higher education were scarce. My brother's dream was to one day be a citizen of a country in Europe or America that can give him dignity and wealth and also can raise the quality of living standard for him and his family.
My friend and I completed the Holy Quran and also an intermediate level of the school. Then, I started finding a way to get further education. I got a contact from some relatives living in the urban cities to seek help for my education journey. At the same time, my friend was planning to leave the town and contacted local strangers to facilitate his journey to Libya.
A few days later, while I was still in the town, I got a phone call. Once I saw the number, I realized that it was from "Tukow". He told me that he was Taleh and was ready to travel to Tripoli in the upcoming days. I told him to come back to the town, and we can make a better living there. I also reminded him of the risk of migration to Europe, but he didn't listen to my advice anymore and ended the call.
Seven months later, my phone rang. After I saw the country code of that number, I knew it was from Libya; it was my friend`s call to share with me his struggle to reach Tripoli that took seven months. He told me that his health condition is not well and his life is in a gamble. He told me that strangers handed him over to Libyan horror, and they would detain him if he didn't pay a ransom of $10,000. They took him from the phone, and they told me what my friend told me. They also added that if I didn't pay the ransom within 10 days, they would kill him.
I and the smugglers (magafayaal) were communicating for a while. After a long time of negotiation, they told me to pay $7,777 for the ransom fee with their last warning. After that, I shared it with some elders of the community and my friend`s relatives. They collected the money for my friend`s freedom. After two days, I called the strangers and transferred the money; they set him free. Due to the difficulties in the road and the prison, he was very sick. After a checkup, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis.
Ten days later, I called a contact person close to my friend, and he told me that my friend boarded a boat on Tuesday the same week he was released with 70 people from different nationalities. I cut the call shocking my friend's suicide. After seven days, my friend called me and told me that he and 9 others survived after police survivors reached them in Malta Island, and at that moment he was in severe health condition in Malta Refugee Camp.
On the next Tuesday, my friend called me from another country. He told me that he traveled from Italy and reached Zürich Switzerland, and that he got an Asylum; he had been hospitalized to get proper treatment while his situation was abnormal. After 14 days in the hospital, my friend died due to tuberculosis that killed his immunity.
After we celebrated that my friend reached his destination, and we were waiting for his recovery, the town and his family faced a tragedy to hear of his death. It was one of the saddest moments in the town to hear the death of their loved one and his body can`t be found to bury that could be contempt and patience for his relatives.
That was the legacy inherited from the adulthood decision made by my lovely friend. May his soul rest in peace. I was in my educational path. 10 years later, I became a university graduate, and I volunteered for some students in the town to complete their primary education there for the first time. Currently, some of those are in their undergraduate studies while others are in secondary school in the same town. This is a path that many Somali youths went through to reach Europe or America while others are dreaming about it.