At least four Somali migrants who were hoping to reach Europe have died in the Saharan desert, friends who managed to make the perilous journey have said.
The migrants were travelling in two cars with a total number of 24 persons from Sudan to Egypt, where they would continue their journey to Italy shores from.
Fellow friends who were part of the perilous journey said that they had died of dehydration, hunger and physical abuse by the smugglers.
‘’They were three men and one teenage girl. Some of them were beaten harshly by the smugglers others died of thirsty and hunger,’’ said Hamza Yusuf, who made the journey to Egypt and willing to continue to Italy by crossing the dangerous Mediterranean sea.
Sahara desert (the Great Desert) is the world’s hottest desert and the third largest desert after Antarctica and the Arctic, and the largest on the continent of Africa. It is over 9,400,000 square kilometer and covers most of North Africa. It stretches from Red Sea, including parts of the Mediterranean coasts to the Atlantic Ocean.
Sahara desert covers large parts of Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Western Sahara, Sudan and Tunisia. It has the harshest climates in the world and the prevailing north-east trade wind often causes sand storms and dust devils.
The news of the migrants’ deaths comes even as Europe is struggling to deal with a rising number of refugee deaths in the Mediterranean Sea.
The chaos in Somalia which has been going on for over two decades has caused many young men and women to risk their lives by going through dangerous journeys, in order to seek for a better life.
Horseed Media
Somalia: Europe-bound Somali migrants die in Sahara desert
Published: August 27, 2015
