LAMPEDUSA: It took more than a year, several thousand dollars, ingenuity, setbacks and a jet ski: this is how Muhammad Abu Dakha, a 31-year-old Palestinian, managed to escape from Gaza to reach Europe.
He documented his story through videos, photographs and audio files, which he shared with Reuters. Reuters also interviewed him and his travel companions upon their arrival in Italy, and their relatives in the Gaza Strip.
Fleeing the devastation caused by the nearly two-year-old Israel-Hamas war, in which Gaza health authorities say more than 57,000 Palestinians have been killed, Abu Dakha crossed the Rafah border point into Egypt in April 2024, paying $5,000.
He said he initially went to China, where he hoped to win asylum, but returned to Egypt, via Malaysia and Indonesia, after that failed. He showed Reuters email correspondence with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) Representation in China from August and September 2024.
Abu Dakha then went to Libya where, according to multiple reports by human rights groups and the UN, tens of thousands of migrants are routinely abused and exploited by traffickers and militias while trying to secure a spot on a boat to Europe.
