The New Yorker:

An Eritrean trafficker promised to help Africans desperate to reach Europe—then brutalized them inside a Libyan compound while extorting their families back home. With his fortune, he partied in Dubai.

By Ed Caesar

Daniel Yalke was twenty when he left Ethiopia and set off for Europe. One of six siblings from a poor family in Cherkos, a tough neighborhood in Addis Ababa, he had recently graduated from a technical college, where he’d trained to be an electrician. Some of his friends from Cherkos had paid smugglers to reach Europe. These friends now sent Yalke boastful texts about their better lives in Italy, France, and England. Yalke, a handsome youth with a wide smile, didn’t see much of a future for himself in Addis Ababa. It was difficult to make money as an electrician in the city, and the work was dangerous: a friend from school had been fatally electrocuted.

In the summer of 2017, Yalke and his best friend from Cherkos, Israel Endale, phoned a broker they knew only as Binyam, who had grown up in their neighborhood. Binyam, who lived in Khartoum, in Sudan, said that he could arrange for their journey to Europe. Starting from Sudan, they’d cross the Sahara, pass through the war-ravaged state of Libya, and then head for Italy on a boat. People often refer to this path as the Central Mediterranean Route.

Yalke and Endale told their families of their plan only a day before they were scheduled to leave. Both families desperately tried to dissuade them, reminding them of people who’d died or been imprisoned on the route, and promising to help them find better opportunities in Addis Ababa. Yalke was initially persuaded by his family, and said that he would reconsider the idea. But Endale was resolute, and within a few hours he’d turned Yalke back to the original plan. The next morning, they secretly boarded a bus. They took no mementos with them, just a few items of clothing, some cash, and a phone. Yalke felt safe with Endale—they were so close that they’d eaten dinner together every night for years, switching between one family’s house and the other’s.

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