{After seeking asylum in the UK from Eritrea 15 years ago, Amani Teklahaimanot now helps refugees on their way to Europe.}<\/p>\n
Catania, Sicily – Amani Teklahaimanot is a unique shipmate.<\/p>\n
A volunteer-rescuer trying to make African refugees safer, Teklahaimanot understands his passengers better than most.<\/p>\n
Fifteen years ago, Teklahaimanot was in the same situation as those he is trying to help.<\/p>\n
“I came through the same journey, and I really know how these people face a lot of hardship in their journey,” he told Al Jazeera. “It’s really a good opportunity to help these helpless people, because I was in the same situation.”<\/p>\n
Amani escaped poverty and repression in Eritrea in 2001.<\/p>\n
His journey took him through Sudan and the Libyan desert before he tried to cross the Mediterranean on a rubber dinghy to reach Europe.<\/p>\n
The dinghy he travelled on failed, however, and he had to return to Libya. Then, in another dangerous journey on a wooden boat, Amani was able to finally reach Italy along with dozens of other Eritrean asylum seekers.<\/p>\n
{{‘Extremely risky journey’}}<\/p>\n
He now remembers with a smile what was back then a difficult situation.<\/p>\n
“So we just got on any train in Italy,” he said. “They [conductors] asked us for a ticket but nobody had a tickets, so we had to get off the train and wait for another one. Anyway, after hours of travelling we reached Rome. For about a month, we just lived on the streets.”<\/p>\n
Teklahaimanot is a British citizen now. He lives and works in Sweden with his family and is preparing for a university degree.<\/p>\n
As a volunteer, he mediates and translates between refugees and rescuers.<\/p>\n
“I really feel sorry to see these people risk their lives, but I can understand them,” he said. “As an Eritrean, I would take the risk because in my country, there is no future at all. I took a risk when I chose between whether to die or have a good future.”<\/p>\n
So far this year, at least 3,654 refugees have died while trying to reach Europe on perilous journeys. In the same period last year, 3,138 refugees died en route to Europe.<\/p>\n
“My message is to tell refugees that it’s an extremely risky journey. A lot of lives are lost in the Sahara desert and Mediterranean sea. They must be aware how risky it is and to try to seek other ways,” said Teklahaimanot.<\/p>\n
As European countries tighten restrictions on refugees, Teklahaimanot feels sad that the welcome he had during his asylum process 15 years ago may not be awaiting new arrivals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{After seeking asylum in the UK from Eritrea 15 years ago, Amani Teklahaimanot now helps refugees on their way to Europe.} Catania, Sicily – Amani Teklahaimanot is a unique shipmate. A volunteer-rescuer trying to make African refugees safer, Teklahaimanot understands his passengers better than most. Fifteen years ago, Teklahaimanot was in the same situation as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[2474],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-29669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-al-jazeera"],"bylines":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29669\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29669"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=29669"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=29669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}