Kosey

Kosey* was nearly 24 years old when he was rescued by the Ocean Viking on the October 30, 2024, along with 24 men in the Maltese-Tunisian Search and Rescue Region, following an alert by Alarm Phone (a hotline for boats in distress).Kosey grew up in Fayoum, Egypt. “After the Egyptian Revolution in 2011, everything became so expensive. When I was growing up, money was just enough for food and essentials. I started working at 10 years old, and I couldn’t even afford to buy a T-shirt. At 19 years old, I decided to seek work elsewhere and heard I could find jobs in Libya where I’d get paid enough to send money to my family. In Egypt, men are the ones who need to provide. Since my father is physically disabled, it was the responsibility of my brothers and me. But my two brothers were in the military, where they barely earned anything.I was also of age to do military service, but I tried to escape it and get to Libya as my family was left with no income. After I paid a smuggler to get to Libya, some men caught me and detained me. I was kept in a container with many other people, tortured with electrical shocks and [my] nails removed to get money from my family, but no one was able to pay the amount the smugglers asked for. One day, I volunteered to take the trash out, and I escaped. They shot gunfire in my direction, but I managed to run far enough. An old man found me and drove me back to the border where I was allowed to cross back to Egypt. I eventually did my military service because I could have risked being imprisoned if I had a police check. While I was there, my father died. I had to beg my officer to get permission to go see my family. I was only allowed one week of leave to grieve with my loved ones. My family was poorer than ever; I was so depressed. After I got finished my three years of service, I went back to Libya as it seemed like the only place where I could make money and send some to my family. I worked as an electrician. But I started hearing many stories about people being kidnapped, and I became afraid to go out. One day, I went to replace a plug in a man’s house. He pushed me against the wall, putting a knife under my throat and asked me to give him $2,000.  I told him I had no money, but he didn’t release me. I had to find $2,000 to be released by a man who was supposed to be a client. After that, my fear of this kind of situation repeating grew, and I started looking for ways out of the country. [I paid a smuggler] and I was put into a room with other Egyptians until the weather was good enough to try to cross towards Europe. One night, they brought us to a beach and put us on a tiny boat. We only received a croissant and half a bottle of water each. Our water and food ran out in less than a day. We ended up spending 4 days at sea in stormy weather. We held one another to not fall off the boat. We got so sick. We felt as we had already died inside.  At one point, we saw your ship in the distance,  then orange boats coming towards us with your crew waving. At that moment, my heartbeat came back.