Amiir’s Story
(c) UNHCR/ I. Ibba / 2014
Amiir, from Somalia, arrived to Italy by sea in May 2014 after a long journey that took him through Ethiopia, Sudan and Libya. Amiir was rescued by an Italian vessel, part of the Mare Nostrum operation.
Three years earlier when he left Somalia, Amiir had nothing left but a pair of shoes. With his family in a refugee camp in Kenya, he decided to undertake the dangerous journey across the desert alone. He met his future wife at the border with Ethiopia, though she was promised for marriage to a guerrilla leader.
They fled together and in Libya they had their first daughter, but political turmoil in the country forced them to undertake the perilous sea crossing to Italy. By the time they reached Italian soil, Amiir’s daughter was just 2 months old, ten days of which she spent in a tiny, overcrowded boat.
