The United Nations Refugee Council (UNHCR) considers Somalia a failed state, which remains one of the most insecure and dangerous places in the world, ‘with an unprecedented humanitarian crisis.’ 

Despite the election of Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, a former member of the Islamic Courts, who is widely considered a ‘moderate’ as the countries President in January 2009, fighting between the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and Islamist fundamentalist insurgents of Al Shaba and Hizbul Islam has continued unabated.

In May, less than two months before the 50th anniversary of Somalia’s independence, the fighting in the capital Mogadishu intensified once again, displacing a further 270,000 people, bringing the total number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) to 1.5 million, according to the latest UNHCR figures.

Above watching over a group of refugees at one of his network’s safe houses hidden deep in Bossaso town’s back streets, thirty-four year old ‘big fish’ smuggler Omar lights a cigarette. (Courtesy of Trolley Books).

Working over a two-year period, British born photojournalist Alixandra Fazzina, who earlier this year was awarded the Nansen Refugee Award for her work documenting the often-overlooked consequences of war, chronicled the exodus of migrants, or tahrib (the Somalia word for illegal emigrants), from Somalia to the Arabian Peninsula.

With many land borders closed, and further conflict in neighbouring countries, and the refugee camps on the Kenyan border now home to over 250,000 Somali’s, facing severe overcrowding and serious shortages of food, water and shelter, one of the few remaining routes of escape is a perilous sea journey across the Gulf of Aden to Yemen, but first the tahrib must make their way north, across a country in bitter turmoil. 

‘Agents from smuggling networks lure the young and vulnerable,’ says Fazzina, ‘strategically placed offices across the southern regions entice those wishing to escape with all-inclusive packages and the promise of a better life,’

Travelling north by road, the passengers carry little with them other than some spare clothes and maybe extra shillings for the long and dangerous journey ahead, ‘war widows and single women are frequently dragged from vehicles at gunpoint only to be raped in full view of defenceless onlookers, while men are often beaten and robbed for loose change, cigarettes or a mobile phone.'

Above Standing in choppy shoulder deep water, Somali refugees look back anxiously from the sea as they try to locate friends and relatives left behind on Shimbrio Beach. (Courtesy of Trolley Books).

Their treacherous road journey ends in the ‘notorious’ coastal town of Bossaso, were each week thousands of emigrants arrive in what is one of the world’s largest hubs for people smuggling and trafficking, and serves as the major transit centre for refugees and migrants who wish to make the Gulf of Aden crossing to Yemen and the Arabian Peninsula.

Once in Bossaso, the tahrib each have to pay one million shillings ($50) — the average monthly income in Somalia is $100 — to the smugglers to secure their place one a tiny vessel that may carry up to 120 passengers, but as Fazzina points out ‘the tahrib know that not all of them will survive the coming journey,’ with one in twenty perishing in the hazardous seas. ‘Whatever the fate of the tahrib on board, each boatload has netted them [the smugglers] $6,000,’ and ‘tomorrow they will return to the beaches to begin again.’

After two gruelling days at sea, the tahrib will be dropped off in the middle of the night to avoid detection, in freezing seas and far from shore, those that make it safely to dry land, will huddle together for warmth on the remote beaches, ‘unaware of the corpses that slowly drift in on the tide behind them,’ says Fazzina.

‘Having wagered their future for a million schillings they have survived this far; but life as a refugee, whether in Yemen or further afield, is an interminable escape, that rarely has a happy ending.’ 

Above Queing along a wire fence, women form a long line as they wait to receive a cooked dinner ration of tea, rice and a little fish, from a busy kitchen at the Mayfa’ah Reception Centre. Exhausted after their long journeys, over the coming two or three days in the transit centre, the temporary residents will receive a cooked breakfast, lunch and dinner as they recover their strength. (Courtesy of Trolley Books).

A Million Shillings: Escape from Somalia is published by Trolley Books.