As risks and borders rise, migrants turn back – but with new purpose at home

Back home in The Gambia, Mustapha Sallah and Karamo Keita were strangers: the first, a computer technician; the second, a shop keeper. But like tens of thousands of other West Africans, they had a common goal: to flee grinding poverty and a lack of opportunity, find work in Europe, and send money home.

Separately, each one crossed the world’s largest desert, evaded slavers, and paid thousands of dollars to be smuggled across war-torn Libya – where they were discovered and detained by authorities, they say. The men met in a squalid Libyan detention facility in January, where they hadn’t rested, washed, or eaten properly in days.

Three months into the men’s detention, representatives of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) visited the prison and offered them tickets home. Dreams of reaching Europe had been dashed, but they had a