{"id":18362,"date":"2024-10-26T15:01:30","date_gmt":"2024-10-26T13:01:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/?p=18362"},"modified":"2026-10-08T23:16:57","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T21:16:57","slug":"migration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/migration\/","title":{"rendered":"Dreams of Migration: Dangerous Routes Taken by Children from Rural Egypt"},"content":{"rendered":"

Near midnight, Saber Mohamed, 15, said goodbye to his family and left his home in the village of Bani Hilal in Sharqia Governorate, carrying a small bag with some food and clothes, hoping to escape poverty. He joined 17 other children from his village, all carrying the dream of reaching Italy, accompanied by an irregular migration broker they had met through a social media site, after he convinced them that they would return years later carrying euros to build houses and buy cars for their families.<\/p>\n

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Meanwhile, Kirollos Shenouda, aged 14, said goodbye to his family and left his town in Assiut Governorate to join a group of teenagers and young men aged between 12 and 22. The group set off on foot along a rugged mountain road for nearly 50 kilometres without food, until they reached the meeting point with the migration broker. After that, they moved from one car to another on their way to the Libyan city of Tobruk.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Saber and his companions boarded a microbus, on a journey that took about 11 hours to reach the Libyan border. At checkpoints, the children heard the driver talking with the inspection officers about a bribe to let the vehicle pass. As soon as they arrived in the Libyan city of Tobruk, gunmen held them in warehouses for three months, where they suffered from a lack of food and drank unfit water, amid a complete absence of hygiene, and found themselves crammed together with other children from Syria, Palestine and African countries.<\/p>\n

Like other children’s fathers, Kirollos’s father paid the broker a sum to take him to Italy, hoping to improve the family’s economic conditions. But instead of reaching their destination, Kirollos and his companions found themselves hostages in the hands of armed groups in Libya, where they were held in a warehouse in the city of Benghazi for about two weeks in harsh conditions. They were then moved to the city of Tobruk in preparation for sending them on boats towards Italy across the Mediterranean.<\/p>\n

The children feared the gunmen and the possibility of drowning at sea, especially since most of them cannot swim. One day, they heard the gunmen talking about plans to sell some of them to human organ traders, which filled them with even more fear. Before these plans were carried out, the Libyan authorities found them and arrested them, and they were held in prison for about a month, where they faced hunger and mistreatment, before being deported to Egypt.<\/p>\n

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According to testimonies from the children and their families obtained by Zawia3, fear of death or prison was not the only thing occupying the children’s minds; the greatest worry was the fate of their families, after their fathers borrowed large sums of money at interest of up to 30% and signed dated trust receipts to pay between EGP 130,000 and 150,000 to the brokers, hoping their sons would work in Italy and repay the debt. They did not realise then that they had fallen victim to fraud, and that their sons would return to Egypt after a period of detention and imprisonment in Libya.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Last July, the Libyan authorities arrested<\/a> hundreds of irregular migrants who tried to travel to Italy via the Libyan coast, among them 25 Egyptian children aged between 11 and 17, who were in a shelter warehouse in the city of Tobruk, most of them from a single village in Sharqia Governorate in northern Egypt.<\/p>\n

According to a report<\/a> by the National Committee for Combating and Preventing Illegal Migration and Trafficking in Persons, 58% of Egyptian irregular migrants are children under the age of 18.<\/p>\n

Recommended reading:<\/strong> From Burnout to Emigration… Why Are Psychiatrists Leaving Egypt?<\/a><\/p>\n

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The Costs of Irregular Migration<\/h3>\n

Most irregular migrants resort to crossing the Libyan desert border, whose uninhabited land frontiers are difficult to control, and they take one of two routes: either flying from Egypt to Libya and then to its coasts, heading for Italy or Spain, which is the most expensive and least common route, or via the city of Marsa Matrouh, moving across the Western Desert into Libyan territory and from there to the Mediterranean. The cost of one person’s irregular travel to Italy aboard a large boat is about EGP 100,000, according to what Zawia3<\/strong> learned from Mokhtar<\/strong>, one of the migration brokers active on social media in Egypt.<\/p>\n

Mokhtar, who has been promoting his trips for years on platforms such as TikTok and Facebook, says the next trip will set off from Egypt to Libya at the beginning of next month, with the migrant paying EGP 50,000 before travelling and a similar amount after arriving on Italian soil. Mokhtar indicated that the migrant’s safety is guaranteed by one of his relatives staying with a representative until the migrant calls to confirm his arrival. For families, the broker offers a discount: they pay EGP 300,000 split into two instalments, before travel and after arrival.<\/p>\n

Mokhtar says he uses a large boat that is more stable than small boats, claiming that he provides jobs and housing for families after their arrival, regardless of their command of Italian. He asserts that children obtain residence papers, free education and a monthly salary until they reach the age of 18.<\/p>\n

The migration broker admits that he has thousands of videos of people he helped reach Italy on his boat, and sent us some of them as proof. He adds that entire families, including women and children, among them infants, travel with him because of the better future they expect for the children there. The broker says that if parents bring their identity papers and the children’s birth certificates, they obtain official residence, free education and a monthly salary until the children reach 18, and after graduation they are employed on rewarding salaries.<\/p>\n

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According to a report<\/a> by the European newspaper “EUobserver”, more than 3,500 Egyptians crossed the Mediterranean during the first five months of 2022 and arrived in Italy, four times the number of Egyptians who migrated during the same period of 2021. Egyptians rank second on the list<\/a> of migrants to Europe via the central Mediterranean, which includes the Tunisian and Libyan coasts, the route described as the most dangerous.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Libya has ranked first in the number of migrants heading to Italy since the beginning of 2024, according to reports<\/a> by organisations concerned with illegal migration, and about 14,755 irregular migrants reached the Italian shores from Libya during the first half of this year, according to estimates by the Italian agency Nova.<\/p>\n

Egypt ranks second in the number of irregular migrants to Europe via the sea route across the Mediterranean and the land route, reaching about 7,938 migrants from January 2021 until December of the same year, particularly to Greece, Malta and Italy, according to a recent study<\/a> published by the Strategic Forum for Public Policy and Development Studies “Dirayah”.<\/p>\n

According to data<\/a>, Egypt is one of the largest recipients of remittances in the world; it ranked fifth globally with USD 28.92 billion in 2018, and remittances from Egyptians abroad made up about 23.5% of Egypt’s total foreign currency sources in 2022\/2023.<\/p>\n

Recommended reading:<\/strong> What Drives Egypt’s Doctors to Emigrate?<\/a><\/p>\n

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The Dangers of Irregular Journeys<\/h3>\n

Ayman Zohry<\/strong>, founder of the Egyptian Society for Migration Studies (EGYMIG), assistant professor at the American University in Cairo, and head of the scientific panel on migration at the Union for African Population Studies, explains to Zawia3<\/strong> that Italy and Spain are the gateway to Europe and not necessarily the final destination, and that Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Morocco serve as transit points for migrants from other countries.<\/p>\n

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He stresses that boats have no longer left from Egypt since the Rashid incident, and have shifted to the Libya route, which is hard to control because it runs along a desert border stretching 1,150 kilometres. He considers irregular migration an economic and political phenomenon linked to state instability, and says the pattern of Egyptian migration to Europe over the last 20 years reproduces the pattern of their migration to the Gulf: most of them go to work in construction for years to collect money, then return to Egypt to marry, and perhaps travel again when their money runs out, or later send their children to the same fate.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Zohry<\/strong> likens migration brokers to drug dealers, some of whom give users genuine drugs and others adulterated ones, while both carry out work criminalised by law; some brokers deliver migrants to Europe to obtain the rest of the money from their families and maintain their credibility in the place they come from, while others deceive migrants into believing the journey is safe, then surprise them by turning them into a commodity that is controlled, kept in certain places and starved to lose weight, and they may be detained for months in Libya or even sold to human trafficking gangs. He pointed to Europe’s commitment to its laws, which require it to treat migrants in a regulated manner, including providing them with food, drink, medical care and clothing inside shelter centres, and noted that there has recently been a trend towards establishing detention centres for irregular migrants in Europe and carrying out rapid screening to keep those who qualify and grant them asylum seeker status, and return those who do not qualify to their countries.<\/p>\n

Recommended reading:<\/strong> From Egypt to Mexico: An American Dream Turned Nightmare<\/a><\/p>\n

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Security Solutions<\/h3>\n

Over the nine years since the sinking<\/a> of a fishing boat off the coast of the city of Rashid in Beheira Governorate in September 2016 (it was carrying between 450 and 600 irregular migrants, and claimed the lives of 204 people, including children and women, according to official statements by the Egyptian Ministry of Health, and more than 300 victims according to residents of Rashid, who said they recovered their drowned bodies), the Egyptian authorities have managed to close the door to irregular migration boats that used to leave the Egyptian coast directly for Europe across the Mediterranean, relying on security solutions, which rights advocates believe were marred by violations<\/a> against people charged with smuggling and human trafficking, who were held in pretrial detention for years.<\/p>\n

Nour Khalil<\/strong>, a human rights defender and researcher on refugee and migration affairs and executive director of Refugees Platform in Egypt, tells Zawia3<\/strong> that “the Egyptian authorities relied, in drafting legislation, on security solutions and expanded militarisation, without providing real protection for irregular migrants or establishing special procedures for asylum seekers to fulfil the international obligations entrusted to them, such as Presidential Decree<\/a> 444 of 2014 and Law 82<\/a> of 2016 and their amendments, which led to the adoption of security solutions in the response procedures of the security authorities in Egypt. While this was happening in parallel with agreements with the European side, human rights organisations were criticising Egypt’s performance in dealing with the issue of irregular migration at the level of legislation and procedure.”<\/p>\n

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Khalil adds that the countries of the southern Mediterranean, including Egypt, have become “transit” crossings for irregular migration journeys towards Europe, as migrants seek to escape wars and armed conflicts, economic crises and climate change that threaten the lives of millions of people in Africa.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The executive director of Refugees Platform believes that the Egyptian authorities do not carry out search and rescue operations on their land and sea borders, despite numerous reports of the disappearance of Egyptians and non-Egyptians on the land and sea borders, attributing this to the fact that Egyptian laws do not impose a clear obligation on the Egyptian authorities to carry out search and rescue operations, which protects them from accountability if they fail to do so. He considers militarisation an obstacle to search and rescue operations by civil organisations; some of them had previously proposed this to the Egyptian authorities and were refused, because the nearby border areas are under military control and being present there requires many security and military permits that the authorities do not grant to researchers, organisations or journalists, in his words. He describes those areas as a black box, with no real investigations by independent investigative bodies into what happens there, and therefore no accurate information on the number of migrants who went missing, and no clear procedures for the families of the missing to search for their relatives or demand that the authorities do so.<\/p>\n

Khalil reveals that the security measures that followed the sinking of the Rashid boat in 2016 stopped irregular migration by sea, but opened a more dangerous route, which is travel via Libya. He explains that while the authorities were treating irregular movement from a security perspective, this caused widespread violations against citizens, including: defendants in irregular migration cases who are subjected to enforced disappearance, torture and recycling into new cases, and those whose cases the Public Prosecutor decided to reinvestigate without announcing the outcome of the investigation for more than two years, as well as what happened in Matrouh with the killing of citizen Farhat El-Mahfouzy at the hands of forces of the Ministry of Interior’s Anti-Irregular Migration Department, without justice for the victim.<\/p>\n

He adds that “statistics from the International Organization for Migration and the European Border Agency show that, in the last three years, Egyptian nationality has become one of the nationalities that most reach the European Union irregularly, via the most dangerous migration route, which is Libya, as reports by human rights organisations, including Refugees Platform in Egypt, indicate the detention of refugees and migrants in inhumane conditions resembling enslavement, in addition to kidnapping and demanding ransom from families. Those who cross irregularly constantly affirm that the political and economic conditions the country is going through are what pushed them to migrate across the Mediterranean.”<\/p>\n

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Following the sinking of the Rashid boat, the prosecution pointed the finger at 57 defendants, who were held in pretrial detention and tried before the Rashid Misdemeanour Court in Case No. 4974<\/a> of 2016 Rashid Administrative, Total 17463; 56 defendants were sentenced to prison terms ranging from two to 14 years, and one female defendant was acquitted. In 2017, the Beheira security director announced<\/a> the arrest of 120 irregular migration brokers, who he said included people involved in the sinking of the Rashid boat.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In March 2020, a group of fishermen coming from Libya through the Salloum land crossing were arrested after a fishing trip that reached the Libyan shores, and they were charged with smuggling in Case<\/a> No. 622 of 2020 Supreme State Security, which includes about 40 fishermen from the same village.<\/p>\n

In 2022, Egypt signed an agreement<\/a> with the European Union to implement a border management programme worth EUR 80 million, to strengthen cooperation between the two sides in managing migration, aimed at helping the Egyptian authorities reduce irregular migration and human trafficking along its borders.<\/p>\n

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The Road of Death<\/h3>\n

Although security solutions succeeded in closing the coastal outlets of irregular migration, they did not solve the problem at its roots and did not stop thousands of young people from boarding the boats of death, fleeing poverty, unemployment and the repercussions of the economic crisis and searching for a job, a dignified life and a better future, even if it cost them their lives. Migration brokers found another, more dangerous route, starting from the town of Salloum in Marsa Matrouh Governorate, western Egypt, and extending across the Western Desert to Libyan cities such as Derna, Tobruk and others, from whose coasts boats carry irregular migrants across the Mediterranean on their way to southern European countries, especially Italy, Spain and Greece; however, drowning is often the fate of those unsafe boats.<\/p>\n

The nine years that followed the Rashid boat disaster were not free of sinkings of irregular migration boats that set off from the Libyan coast carrying Egyptians, most of whom ended up among the dead. In August 2021, a boat sank<\/a> carrying about 70 people from the village of Talbana in Mansoura district, Dakahlia Governorate, on an irregular migration journey to Italy; 11 young men and children among them died, and 59 others went missing in the Mediterranean. Six migrants from Assiut Governorate, southern Egypt, among them five children, died<\/a> of hunger aboard an irregular migration boat in August 2022 after losing their way in the Mediterranean instead of reaching Italy. Also, 12 Egyptian migrants from villages in Fayoum Governorate drowned<\/a> in September 2022 when their boat capsized near the coast of Libya on their way to Italy. This came days after the Libyan authorities announced<\/a> the rescue of seven Egyptian migrants, while two drowned and 19 people went missing in August, after the sinking of an irregular migration boat carrying 27 Egyptians in the Mediterranean on their way to Italy.<\/p>\n

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In one of the worst shipwrecks in the Mediterranean, the vessel “Adriana” sank<\/a> off the Greek coast on 14 June last year, carrying about 750 irregular migrants, most of them Egyptians; only 104 people survived, including 43 Egyptians. The Greek authorities charged nine of them with smuggling migrants and causing the sinking of the ship, before the charges were dropped in May of this year.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

On 4 August this year, the Italian coast guard announced<\/a> that it had found the bodies of two irregular migrants, and that a third migrant went missing during the rescue of 34 migrants of Syrian and Egyptian nationality off the southeastern coast of the Italian island of Sicily. Last September, sinkings of irregular migration boats carrying Egyptians recurred in the Mediterranean: the Libyan authorities announced<\/a> on 3 September the recovery of a migrant’s body and the rescue of nine survivors after the sinking of their boat, which was carrying 32 irregular migrants, including Egyptians and Syrians, off the coast of Tobruk, while 22 others went missing. In mid-September, some residents of the towns of Sidi Barrani and Salloum in Marsa Matrouh Governorate found<\/a> seven bodies<\/a> of migrants who had been aboard an irregular migration boat off the Libyan coast, most of them Egyptians, along with Syrians and Sudanese, and nine migrants, including eight Egyptians, were rescued<\/a>. Meanwhile, on 18 September, the Egyptian coast guard rescued an irregular migration boat carrying 45 people of Syrian and Egyptian nationality, which had set off from Libya heading to the Greek island of Crete but entered Egyptian waters and sent a distress call, according to the Unified Rescue<\/a> group.<\/p>\n

2,511 people went missing in the Mediterranean last year, most of them on the central Mediterranean route, according to a “Frontex” report<\/a> citing International Organization for Migration figures, while 355,000 irregular migrants reached the European Union.<\/p>\n

Recommended reading:<\/strong> Justice or Revenge? Greece Tries 9 Egyptians Who Survived the Sinking of the “Adriana”<\/a><\/p>\n

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Futile Legal Amendments?<\/h3>\n

Economic and legal expert Adel Amer<\/strong>, director of the “Al-Masryoun Center for Economic and Social Studies”, explains that the Anti-Illegal Migration Law<\/a> No. 22 of 2022 amended some provisions of the Law on Combating Illegal Migration and Smuggling of Migrants issued by Law No. 82 of 2016, and stipulated that “anyone who commits or attempts to commit the crime of smuggling migrants, or mediates in it, shall be punished with aggravated imprisonment and a fine of not less than EGP 200,000 and not more than EGP 500,000, or a fine equal to the value of the benefit obtained, whichever is greater”. Under the law, the penalty is aggravated imprisonment for not less than five years and a fine of not less than EGP 500,000 and not more than EGP 1 million, or a fine equal to the value of the benefit obtained, whichever is greater, if the smuggled migrant is a woman, a child, legally incompetent or a person with a disability.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Zawia3, Adel Amer considers that the legal amendments alone are not enough to eliminate irregular migration. He believes that deteriorating economic and social conditions and the lack of decent jobs push some individuals, despite their competence, to look for alternative opportunities abroad. He adds that irregular migration is also linked to some people’s desire to improve their economic conditions and obtain social privileges, despite the great risks it carries, such as being arrested or exploited by human trafficking gangs. He also points to the importance of the media’s role in raising young people’s awareness of the dangers of irregular migration and its repercussions.<\/p>\n

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The centre’s director explains that there are eight villages in Egypt that are among the most prominent irregular migration areas, located in the districts of Tala, Samannoud and Mit Badr Halawa, in addition to some villages in Beni Suef, Minya and Fayoum. He points out that the success stories of some migrants who became businessmen in European countries such as Italy, France and the Netherlands encourage many of these villages’ young people to migrate. Difficult economic conditions, such as rising inflation and prices, along with population growth, have also contributed to the growing spread of irregular migration in Egypt.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In the same context, Ali El-Din El-Qasabi<\/strong>, professor of sociology at South Valley University, considers that the irregular migration of young people and children has a great impact on villages and hamlets across Egypt’s governorates, will negatively affect the availability of labour, and causes the spread of crime among those children and their dropping out of education.<\/p>\n

Ambassador Soha Gendy, Minister of State for Emigration and Egyptian Expatriates’ Affairs, had announced<\/a> in November 2023 the implementation of the presidential initiative “Marakeb El-Nagah<\/a>” (Lifeboats) to raise awareness of the dangers of irregular migration and provide safe means and alternatives for Egyptian youth, in 72 villages in the 14 governorates that export the most irregular migration: Fayoum, Beheira, Gharbia, Menoufia, Qalyubia, Dakahlia, Sharqia, Kafr El-Sheikh, Beni Suef, Minya, Assiut, Luxor, Qena and Sohag.<\/p>\n

Recently, the Egyptian House of Representatives approved amendments to Law No. (232)<\/a> of 1989 on the safety of ships. In its amendments, the law obliges every owner or operator of an Egyptian ship or marine unit to notify the competent authority of any sale or lease transactions concerning it within a period not exceeding 30 days from the date of the transaction, attaching the transaction document to the notification; otherwise he shall be punished with imprisonment for a period not exceeding one year and a fine of not less than EGP 50,000 and not more than EGP 500,000, or one of these two penalties. If the failure to notify results in the Egyptian ship or marine unit being used for an unlawful purpose with the knowledge of the party disposing of it, the penalty is imprisonment.<\/p>\n

While the Egyptian authorities fight the spread of irregular migration through security solutions and legal amendments that toughen penalties, many young people and children in Egyptian villages, such as Saber and his companions, still dream of a better future and seek a road fraught with death, hoping to escape poverty and poor economic conditions. But their dreams often turn into nightmares and end tragically, either drowning on irregular migration boats, being killed at the hands of Libyan gangs, or being detained and imprisoned in Libya and deported to Egypt, returning empty-handed to live in even worse conditions after their families have sunk into debt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Security solutions and tougher penalties against irregular migration have failed to tackle its root, as worsening economic and social conditions keep driving it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":10878,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[410,390],"tags":[5271,19326,19331,19084,19332,19327,19330,19329,19333,19328],"kateb":[1550,19220],"class_list":["post-18362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-investigations-en","category-human-rights","tag-adriana-shipwreck","tag-egyptian-child-migrants","tag-eu-egypt-border-management","tag-irregular-migration-egypt","tag-law-82-of-2016-migrant-smuggling","tag-libya-migration-route","tag-migration-brokers","tag-rashid-boat-disaster","tag-rural-egypt-poverty","tag-tobruk-detention","kateb-aya-yasser","kateb-heba-eldebiany"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/\u0647\u062c\u0631\u0629-1.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18362"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18362\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18363,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18362\/revisions\/18363"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18362"},{"taxonomy":"kateb","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/kateb?post=18362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}