A MOTHER’s EFFORTS TO SAVE HER SON FROM HUMAN TRAFFICKERS

Halimo Aw-Farah has been enduring sleepless nights worrying about her 17-year-old son, Abdinasir, who is being held by people smugglers in Libya.

She says the smugglers have been calling her every day demanding a ransom of $7,500 or else they will kill him.

For three months, she has been travelling around Banadir from her home in Hodan, Mogadishu, asking people to contribute money so that she can secure her son’s release.

“He has a broken arm and although the injury happened three months ago he hasn’t had the treatment he needs. He told me his arm is infected and swollen and that he and other  boys who were kidnapped with are punished by being made to stand in the hot sun every day,” Halimo told me.

Abdinasir was in his third year of high school when he left for Mogadishu last in June. His mother only knew he had migrated when he called her from Ethiopia. Two months later, he crossed from Sudan to Libya with the aim of reaching Europe. His arm was broken when a barrel fell on him in a truck as he was being raced across the desert by the smugglers, who handed him to an armed group in Tripoli.

“I ask anyone I meet to help me with anything they can even if it is just 1,000 Somali shillings so I can manage to raise the amount demanded by the human traffickers and save my son from them,” said Halimo, 38, who is a single mother of five.

Halimo has had to close down her small shop to concentrate on raising funds. Three of her children have had to drop out of school as she can no longer pay the $15 monthly fees each. Her 10-year-old daughter’s fees are being paid by relatives.

Aweis Haji Nor
Journalist
Aweysaar@gmail.com