Every year, tens of thousands of people from Horn of Africa countries in the continent's north-east undertake dangerous journeys to faraway South Africa to escape conflict, poverty and hunger in their homelands. In a special series, AlertNet tells the stories of Somali refugees crossing into Kenya, a young Somali woman living illegally in Kenya and a teenage boy who has travelled 4,500km (2,800miles) from Somalia to South Africa
NAIROBI (AlertNet) - It took Mohamed Hanad nine months to escape the violence in his native Somalia to arrive in a safer home in South Africa - an epic journey punctuated by hard labour in a Zambian jail, deportation, hunger and extortion.
But the 17-year-old described his ordeal as the lesser of two evils compared to the perils he faced in Kismayu, a Somali coastal town controlled by al Shabaab, one of AfricaÂ?s most brutal and extremist rebel groups.
Â?A member of al Shabaab came to our home and told me that since I am coming of age, I should prepare to join the mujahideen force,Â? Hanad who requested for his real name to be withheld told AlertNet by telephone from Cape Town, where he now lives.
Al ShabaabÂ?s hardline interpretation of Islamic law has shocked many Somalis, who are traditionally more moderate Muslims. The Islamic insurgents last year cut off the hands and feet of four teenagers as punishment for theft.
Years of anarchy since warlords toppled dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, combined with frequent drought and rampant inflation, have turned Somalia into the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, the United Nations has said.
Â?I would never join al Shabaab, and as soon as I sensed that they wanted me, I started planing to leave Somalia,Â? said Hanad.
LONG WAY TO GO
One day in March 2009, Hanad initially set off on foot on his 4,500-km (2,800-mile) journey. He walked for hours to cross into neighbouring Kenya.
Kenya closed its border in 2007 but the porous frontier allows thousands of Somalis every month to enter the east African country illegally.
Without financial support from his family in Kenya, Hanad would not have stood a chance to get even this far.
Â?It took me four days of travel and $2,200 in bribes to move from Kismayu to Nairobi,Â? said Hanad, who has a sister in the Kenyan capital Nairobi.
Hanad met people smugglers in Nairobi who charged $3,000 to take him to South Africa.
The teenager joined a group of more than 70 Somalis, including a 60-year-old woman and a toddler, crammed into trucks to start the journey south - via Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia and Mozambique.
"I travelled in an old truck from Kenya through to Malawi for several days with no food," he said.
STRANDED IN ZAMBIA
But the worst was yet to come when Hanad got to Zambia, a country increasingly being used as a transit route from the Horn of Africa to the south of the continent.
"When we entered Zambia, the security forces arrested us and sent us to a prison near the border, where we tilled land on government farms every day for six months," Hanad said.
The teenager was jailed alongside hardcore criminals, and fell ill with a chest infection and malaria from mosquito bites.
A Somali community in Zambia helped secure his release but hundreds of his compatriots had to stay behind in the jail.
HanadÂ?s ordeal was far from over - he was deported back to Tanzania and told to go back to Somalia.
Â?I was taken to the Tanzanian border and told to find my way back to where I came from,Â? said Hanad. Â?But I re-established contact with the brokers, who then took me through another route in Mozambique.Â?
From Mozambique he Â?easily sneaked into South AfricaÂ? where he was received by a friend who runs a shop in Cape Town.
HanadÂ?s journey has not ended there. He is already planning his next trip - from Cape Town to Minnesota in the United States where he hopes to settle.
BETTER COORDINATION
HanadÂ?s painful story highlights the dynamics of abuse and exploitation in smuggling people from east Africa.
Tal Raviv, regional programme officer at the United NationsÂ? International Organisation for Migration (IOM), said at least 17,000 men, mainly from Somalia and Ethiopia, are estimated to migrate illegally to South Africa every year.
Located in several transit countries, organised criminal groups facilitate the illegal movement of people, which an IOM report in 2009 valued at $40 million in business for the smugglers.
The countries include Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and South Africa.
Raviv said countries in the region needed to come up with agreements on how to deal with illegal migrants.
"One of the recommendations in our report is that states should maximise their communication and share information concerning movements of illegal migrants in the region," said Raviv.
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