By Ita Dungan

Copyright bbc

Yousuf was a teenager when he made the decision to leave Somalia.

He believed he had no other choice, it was either join the terrorists, join the military or “die in the middle”.

“For me, I always had a dream of playing football and that is what kept me away from joining,” he added.

But he did not know once he handed over money to the criminal smuggling gangs he became their property.

What followed was a three month journey through Ethiopia, Sudan and Libya, before eventually arriving in Italy on an overcrowded dinghy.

In Sudan, Yousuf said smugglers left his group for a month in the desert enduring searing hot days and bitter cold nights surviving on meagre rations of rice and contaminated water.

Yousuf said half of his group died, including a good friend.

“No one had the energy to bury them because everybody was just getting weaker and weaker. The only thing we could do is just drag them a bit far from where we were staying.

“They would just get buried by the dust.”

Yousuf said the smugglers demanded more money, forcing those in the group to call relatives asking for funds to be wired.

However, when the group’s numbers dwindled they gave up on demanding money.