TERESA KRUG: As Samia made her way to the Sahara Desert in summer, 2011, the region around her was going through a transformation of its own: the Arab Spring.

 

REPORTER: Either this is the first Arab revolution of the 21st century, or it will be brutally suppressed.

 

TERESA KRUG: Across the Middle East and North Africa people were rising up, protesting authoritarian leaders and tearing down institutions.

 

REPORTER: Mubarak deposed, Egypt’s 18-day revolution defies all expectation.

 

REPORTER: Tense new beginnings for Tunisia, its Arab neighbors of how revolutionary feelings have spread.

 

TERESA KRUG: The Arab Spring spread to Libya. Protesters and rebel groups were pushing back against Libya’s longtime brutal dictator, Muammar Gaddafi, throwing the country into a civil war. And this war was destroying homes and families, dividing communities, and displacing hundreds of thousands of Libyans. And human rights abuses were rampant. Detention centers and prisons grew, as Gaddafi forces and militia groups each developed their own to house the growing number of people arrested or kidnapped.

 

REPORTER: A new fear is gripping Libya. The charred bodies of prisoners allegedly killed by retreating loyalists have been found on the outskirts of Tripoli.

 

REPORTER: Libya has been hit with allegations by rights groups about widespread torture in prisons by revolutionary fighters.

 

TERESA KRUG: At the same time, more outsiders like Samia were migrating to Libya and through it, fleeing violence or financial hardships from other parts of the Middle East and Africa.

 

REPORTER: These Somalis describe a well-worn migration route. They all want to get to Italy by boat.

 

MALE VOICE (TRANSLATED): We know there is a war in Libya, but there’s a war in Somalia, too.

 

TERESA KRUG: In Samia’s plan, Libya was just the next stop on her journey to Europe. But now she had left one more behind, just to land in the middle of another one. When they arrived in Libya, Samia and her fellow countrymen weren’t just unwelcome. Because they were outsiders, they were targeted.

 

TERESA KRUG: They could be kidnapped and thrown in detention centers, tortured, used as forced labor, or worse. Meaning Samia would need to hide, take shelter in makeshift encampments, or run if she didn’t want to be caught. At this point Samia had come so far in her journey.

 

TERESA KRUG: But to get to the Mediterranean Sea, to get to Europe, Samia would have to first compete for her life, passing through a country where immigrants were not just preyed upon, but persecuted. I’m Teresa Kurg. And from 30 for 30 Podcasts, this is The Fastest Girl in Somalia, episode four: Libya.

 

TERESA KRUG: On the way to Libya, Samia spent about a month traveling northwest through Sudan. At every turn the network of smugglers transporting Samia demanded more money, which meant more calls to family asking for help. In August 2011, after a grueling journey, Samia crossed over into Sabhā.

 

TERESA KRUG: It’s a city in the southwestern corner of the country that had become a hub for human trafficking and smuggling. Like all of Libya, Sabhā was a place in flux. Migrants often landed in detention centers or had to take shelter in makeshift encampments. Samia landed in one of these encampments. It was here that she met someone who would become her close friend, Aisha.

 

AISHA (TRANSLATED): How I met Samia was we were on the line waiting for soup or something, you know? And that’s, like, how I– I got to know her.

 

TERESA KRUG: Aisha was also from Mogadishu, a few years younger than Samia. We’re changing her name to protect her privacy. Like Samia, Aisha also lost her father at an early age, and things spiraled from there. Aisha’s family tried to pressure her into becoming a child bride.

 

AISHA (TRANSLATED): The whole plan was to be arranged marriage with my cousin, who was at the time– 32 years old. And I was just 11, turned to be 12. It wasn’t a marriage. It’s a rape that your family arranged. And it’s a rape that is celebrated.

 

TERESA KRUG: Aisha didn’t want that future for herself, and so she fled.

 

AISHA (TRANSLATED): I was not only dealing the traumatize of losing my dad. I was also dealing with the traumatizing of navigating now a new life.

 

TERESA KRUG: Initially, Aisha’s plan was just to go to Sudan, a place where she could figure out what to do next. But then she heard about another option.

 

AISHA (TRANSLATED): And then one night I’ve seen a group of people planning to go to Europe. I’m not gonna lie, I was like, “What is Europe?” The way they were describing it was just like the paraside of– of the world, you know? It’s, like, the heaven. Like, that’s the way they were explaining. But they never warned me the danger of taking that road as well.

 

TERESA KRUG: And so Aisha continued on, making her way to Libya. Samia and Aisha had so much in common and became fast friends.

 

AISHA (TRANSLATED): She was really very kind, by the way. If you knew there’s something wrong and you’re not joining the people or sitting alone, she would always come see you, like, “What is going on, girl?”

 

TERESA KRUG: Aisha says they were among the youngest people in their compound, so they stuck together.

 

AISHA (TRANSLATED): We were the best break rulers that these– you can– you can imagine. We were troublemakers, basically.

 

TERESA KRUG: They passed the time together, carrying out small schemes and dreaming about Europe.

 

AISHA (TRANSLATED): It’s a place that you can step in, you can choose whatever you want your life, that you have freedom, that you have rights, this and that. And we were like, “We can’t wait that– to get that place.”

 

TERESA KRUG: In the compound Samia and Aisha slept on the ground and food was limited. But at least they were relatively safe within those walls. Here, far away from Somalian insurgent groups like Al-Shabaab and Hizbul Islam, Samia was free to be an athlete and tell people about it. Apparently, she talked about being an Olympian all the time. But it took a while for Aisha to believe Samia. Aisha had heard lots of people tell stories of far-fetched realities, after going through so much suffering.

 

AISHA (TRANSLATED): Okay, here’s the thing. People tell crazy stories during that day so you’re not gonna really believe as much as you hear. Someone will tell you, “I’m the president of Somalia.” You just have to say, “Okay, Mr. President,” you know? (LAUGH) “Let’s keep going.”

 

AISHA (TRANSLATED): Like, people– some people they lose their mind because of all the things happening to them, you know? And she kept telling us and we were making fun of it. We were like, “There is no way Somalia is going to send you as– this young girl. You realize?” She’s like, “Yes, I am. I’ve been to (UNINTEL).” I was like, “Unh-uh (NEGATIVE). No way.”

 

TERESA KRUG: Eventually, on a day that they had access to the internet, Samia got to prove herself.

 

AISHA (TRANSLATED): And then she Googled her name. And then I was like, “Oh my god.”

 

TERESA KRUG: Aisha says everyone had their reasons for trying to get to Europe. But for Samia it was all about getting to London and getting to that Olympic track. The clock was ticking. The games were now less than a year away, which meant that she needed to get on a boat soon. In order to do that, she needed to get to Tripoli, the capital of Libya, that sits on the Mediterranean Sea. Together, Samia and Aisha decided they couldn’t stay in Sabhā forever. It was time to move.

 

AISHA (TRANSLATED): So we were like, “Okay. Just fuck it. We’re not gonna follow any rules. Let’s just jump the wall, you know, when no one seen us, and see around the city, and then come back.” So doing that exploration helped us to get the guy who can smuggle us, like, who can take us from Sabhā to Tripoli.

 

TERESA KRUG: They found a smuggler who said he could take them to Tripoli for a price. This meant more debt for Samia. But if everything went perfectly, they could get to Tripoli pretty quickly. This was a big if. Because Libya had a dark history of how it viewed and used migrants.

 

TERESA KRUG: The long-running dictator Gaddafi would hire non-Libyans as mercenaries, recruiting people from countries like Chad, Niger, and Mali to commit atrocities against his own people. So when the Arab Spring began, many Libyans viewed migrants with fear.

 

TERESA KRUG: Lots of rebel militia groups took advantage of this and struck out at all migrants, especially those with darker skin tones. They used the vacuum of power to kidnap these outsiders and extort them for money. All of this meant that if someone in the group was detained at a checkpoint, they could be tortured or disappeared.

 

TERESA KRUG: The smugglers needed a couple volunteers to pass through these dangerous checkpoints by taxi. Essentially, be guinea pigs to test out which militias were in control, and how friendly they were to people who looked like Samia. If these volunteers got through without any trouble, the rest of the group would travel too.

 

TERESA KRUG: If they were not successful, meaning they were killed, detained, or went missing, the rest of the travelers would wait and try at a later date. In exchange for going first, the journey to Tripoli would be free. But it was an extremely risky proposition, the kind that you take if you have nothing to lose.

 

AISHA (TRANSLATED): So everyone looked each other. Everyone looked each other. And then I– I said, “I will take it.” I was like, “I can do it,” you know? I was– I just raised my hand. At the time I was 13. And the only reason I’m taking this risk is because I know that I have no money, and I know that this test is free. Like, I don’t care the risks. Let’s just go.

 

TERESA KRUG: This was the first time that Samia and Aisha would be separated since meeting in Sabhā. They’d been doing everything together, eating meals, making mischief, sharing their dreams. But now to make it north to the coast, they’d play the odds. Hopefully they’d reunite in Tripoli. But on this journey, one could never really be sure.

 

AISHA (TRANSLATED): We jumped to a taxi. And we have been dr– driving hours and hours, long hours.

 

TERESA KRUG: A few days later smugglers got word that Aisha had made it to Tripoli and was waiting for Samia to join her. But Samia would not be as lucky. Samia was caught and detained along the road to Tripoli. By this time, Libya’s justice infrastructure had collapsed.

 

TERESA KRUG: The leader of Libya, Muammar Gaddafi, had been executed, leaving many groups vying for power. And so migrants like Samia fell through the cracks. There were no hearings, no deliberation, no place for her to plead her case to. It was the first time Samia had ever been in prison.

 

TERESA KRUG: I can’t imagine how frightened she must have been, a young Somali woman in a Libyan prison at the height of the Arab Spring. For more than a month Aisha didn’t know what happened to Samia. Had she made it out? She knew Samia’s group could’ve been delayed. But after a while, Aisha started to fear the worst.

 

AISHA (TRANSLATED): So we just imagined that they have been either killed or they have been tooken as slavery. And that was a common thing in Libya at the time.

 

TERESA KRUG: I don’t know exactly what happened to Samia while she was in prison. What I do know is that she eventually did get out, and she found her way to the new place where Aisha was staying in Tripoli. Aisha couldn’t believe that Samia and the others she’d left in Sabhā were still alive.

 

AISHA (TRANSLATED): So when they arrived we were just so happy.

 

TERESA KRUG: Samia and Aisha were now closer than ever to the Mediterranean Sea. Their next step would be to try to get on a boat. But it was getting colder, meaning a higher risk of strong winds and rocky seas. It would be safer to wait it out.

 

AISHA (TRANSLATED): And then we stayed camp– at camp for most of the time in– during the winter.

 

TERESA KRUG: The winter months blurred together. Samia and Aisha knew the time was passing, but every day it was pretty much the same in the camp.

 

AISHA (TRANSLATED): I don’t know when 2011 ended and 2012 started.

 

TERESA KRUG: While they waited, Samia and Aisha adjusted to life in a new compound. It looked a little bit like a military base. And Aisha says the grounds were pretty big. They took advantage of having the space.

 

AISHA (TRANSLATED): It was a hue place. It had, like– a sports area that you can run for training.

 

TERESA KRUG: Every morning before sunrise Samia would get up to train. Aisha remembers joining her one day.

 

AISHA (TRANSLATED): And I would say, “Okay, let’s run together.” And she’s like, “Nah, girl. You go first. You go, girl, and I will catch you.” I would say, “Okay, why not?”

 

TERESA KRUG: Aisha started running first.

 

AISHA (TRANSLATED): And then I just ran few more seconds and then secondly I’ve just seen, like, a strong wind, something passing me that’s like (MAKES NOISE).

 

TERESA KRUG: In retrospect, Tripoli, ironically, would become the best, most consistent training facility of Samia’s life. It was around this time when I finally heard from Samia for the first time since she left Ethiopia. I’d been worried for months at her total silence, so I was relieved to read the optimistic message. “It’s okay,” she wrote.”

 

SAMIA YUSUF OMAR (TRANSLATED): It’s okay. There is no problem.

 

TERESA KRUG: She wrote that she was still set on going to Italy to make a different life for herself. She was surrounded by other Somalis all hoping to reach Europe, or maybe even America. I couldn’t really tell whether her plans had sharpened or whether she was still just figuring it out as she went.

 

SAMIA YUSUF OMAR (TRANSLATED): Teresa, there is many things I want to tell you. The problem is I don’t know perfect English.

 

TERESA KRUG: After a few months in Tripoli, early spring arrived. The sea could still be very rough then, but Samia and Aisha were tired of waiting. They did what they’d heard so many others had done. They tried to get on a boat, any boat. Like every step of the journey, they had to pay smugglers.

 

AISHA (TRANSLATED): In Libya before you go– you cannot just jump from the camp and jump to the boat. No. They will take you and take you somewhere close to the ocean. They have to check the weather and make sure the– the marine police is not around. Then they cancel the boat.

 

TERESA KRUG: The smugglers crammed them into a boathouse, sort of like a barn, where they waited for their turn to get on a boat. The way Aisha describes it, they were treated like cattle.

 

AISHA (TRANSLATED): We were staying there almost a month. We were more than– 100 people. And I remember we were eating– bread once a day. And then you sleep and– and– and stay in the same place that you pee, basically.

 

TERESA KRUG: As the days dragged on, so did the frustration among the hopeful passengers. Until one day the frustration turned to protests. They were so loud that local authorities were alerted.

 

AISHA (TRANSLATED): And then suddenly we are hearing gunshots. So then everyone has to run. So we keep running, running, and then suddenly the– we get to– around the beach and then you cannot run t– into the water, you know? You have to stop.

 

TERESA KRUG: They were taken to a prison.

 

AISHA (TRANSLATED): So at this point me and Samia and the other girls, we’re all together. We stayed there a night or two nights or something. And that was the biggest, most scariest person I’ve ever been.

 

TERESA KRUG: Aisha and Samia were in yet another situation beyond their control. They considered escaping, but the wall was too high to jump over. They were trapped.

 

AISHA (TRANSLATED): It’s a prison that if you even thought about that you can’t run or escape. You’re not able to do. You just can’t. Like, how big the wall itself was.

 

TERESA KRUG: A few days later Aisha and Samia were taken from that prison and loaded onto a big bus flanked by intimidating vehicles without explanation as to why or where they were going.

 

AISHA (TRANSLATED): I was sitting next to Samia. And Samia was like, “Maybe they’re taking back to us the refugee camp.”

 

TERESA KRUG: But Aisha wasn’t so optimistic. She knew something wasn’t right. During this time, migrants were often transferred between state prisons, makeshift detention centers, and secret facilities operated by armed rebel groups.

 

AISHA (TRANSLATED): For me I always listen my instincts. When my instinct just tells me something, I’m just like it– it is what it is.

 

TERESA KRUG: Aisha decided they couldn’t go wherever this bus was taking them, so she hatched a plan. She wanted to run off the bus while it was in traffic, and she wanted Samia to come with her. But Samia wasn’t into the idea. When the bus slowed in a sea of cars Aisha managed to slip out and ran off.

 

TERESA KRUG: Samia stayed behind and was sent to yet another prison, just as Aisha had feared. If my timeline is right, it was around this moment when I heard from Samia one more time. She sounded desperate. She wrote to tell me that she was having a big problem, but she gave no other details.

 

TERESA KRUG: “I need you to help me any way you can help me, please,” she wrote. I responded half an hour later, asking how I could help. But there was no answer. It would be the last time I heard from her. From this part of Samia’s story there are somewhat conflicting accounts, but the broad strokes are the same.

 

TERESA KRUG: I found out that Samia got out of prison in Tripoli after about three months, and that she and Aisha found each other again. It was the spring of 2012. The Olympics were now just a few months away. Officially, the Somali Olympic Committee had not yet selected the two runners who would go.

 

TERESA KRUG: But the rumors of another girl being chosen were getting louder. I’ve always wondered what was going through Samia’s head around this time, what she actually thought was possible. I asked Aisha. One of the questions that a lot of people have asked me, and I’m sure they’ve asked you, is did she have a plan? ‘Cause if the Somali Olympic Committee had not chosen her, was she gonna pick a different country to represent? Or– yeah, tell me any details you have about that.

 

AISHA (TRANSLATED): Her plan was, “I’m going to get to London whatever way it takes.” So I don’t know how she was going to convince that now she’s in London and therefore entitled to run this Olympic. I don’t know how she was going or planning to convince that the committee, you know? I don’t know that part.

 

TERESA KRUG: After all the trials she’d been through, all the hurdles placed in her way, it really was that simple. Samia still just wanted to get to the London Olympics and run. And even though this dream of somehow making it to Europe and convincing Olympic officials that she should compete seemed far-fetched, Samia seemed to really believe she could do it.

 

TERESA KRUG: The practicalities of getting a spot on the track didn’t seem to matter. It was all about just getting there, being there in person when the gun went off. But Samia still had the most daunting leg of the journey, the last leg of her race ahead of her: the Mediterranean Sea.

 

TERESA KRUG: It’s one of the deadliest migration routes in the world. The number of bodies that washed ashore, all fellow dreamers, were hard to miss. Those bodies would be covered in white sheets and placed in mass graves. But not before the bodies were photographed by cellphones and circulated widely.

 

TERESA KRUG: These photos and the stories that accompanied them kept migrants perpetually on edge. But despite those odds, people were still so desperate that they were willing to take the risk. Over and over again Aisha and Samia had played those odds. Because not playing meant staying in Libya, where they’d be forever vulnerable to a cycle of detainment, abuse, and ransom.

 

AISHA (TRANSLATED): When you have been in jury for so long time you always want to get away as quick as possible. Especially in Libya when you are between in a camp and prison. You really want to get as quick as possible. We’re not even being rational about it. It’s just like, “Let’s just get it.”

 

TERESA KRUG: For Samia and Aisha, getting on a boat to cross the Mediterranean Sea felt like their only choice. In April of 2012 Samia paid a smuggler several hundred dollars to get on a boat. It would mean borrowing more money from her family for this passage.

 

TERESA KRUG: At that point, Samia would’ve owed thousands of dollars, much more than what had been negotiated back in Ethiopia. Her family told me that before she made this final journey she reached out to them. They begged Samia to come home, to figure out a way to go back through the Sahara.

 

TERESA KRUG: But they told me Samia resisted, feeling guilty that she was carrying so much debt, and asked for forgiveness before getting in the sea. When I first heard this I didn’t understood why Samia needed forgiveness for a debt, for leaving her home in pursuit of a dream. But over the years I’ve come to understand that in Islam you settle your accounts before death. So Samia was preparing in case she died. Finally, the time for departure arrived. Two boats would go out, Samia on one, Aisha on the other.

 

AISHA (TRANSLATED): So it ended up all of us being in the sea, actually, just going in separate boats.

 

TERESA KRUG: Even though they were separated, Aisha and Samia wore the same pink T-shirt and scarf, linking them across the waves.

 

AISHA (TRANSLATED): That boat, before we took, we went to the shop. That’s the things we bought together, actually.

 

TERESA KRUG: Samia also wore a necklace with the Somali flag. Sometime before dawn, Samia and her fellow passengers headed toward the shoreline. The only light would’ve been from the moon, most of it visible in the night sky, and possibly a few phone flashlights.

 

TERESA KRUG: There was no sight of Libyan authorities patrolling. Samia settled into a line of around 70 other people in complete silence. Like everyone else, she did not bring a life jacket. The destination was unclear to the passengers. The boat would either go to Malta or to the Italian island of Lampedusa.

 

TERESA KRUG: On average, the trip could take up to three days. Although, if they ran into problems, it would take longer. Samia followed the other passengers onto the boat. They packed in as tightly as they could. A few children were onboard. I’ve been told that one woman, excited to meet her husband in Europe, brought along a bouquet of roses.

 

TERESA KRUG: In the jostle of the boarding, the flowers dropped overboard, a red pool of petals in the water. Once aboard someone said a prayer to bless the group. Then the boat sped away. I’d imagined Samia on the water for years, but I wanted to understand this part of her story more deeply.

 

TERESA KRUG: I wanted to see this body of water she’d sacrificed so much to cross, and understand how she must’ve felt aboard that boat. So I decided to travel to the Mediterranean and board a migrant rescue ship to see it all for myself.

 

MALE VOICE: Okay, hop in, let’s go. Okay, let’s go.

 

MALE VOICE: Yeah, let’s rock and roll.

 

MALE VOICE: Let’s go.

 

TERESA KRUG: That’s next time on The Fastest Girl in Somalia.