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In March 2023, Omar was on his lunch break at a construction site in Cairo when he heard that his 15-year-old cousin had drowned off the Tunisian coast.
Omar, then 16, had last spoken to his cousin the night before to wish him a safe trip. The two teenagers were living in poverty in the Egyptian capital, Omar said, and planned to travel together to Libya and then find a boat to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Italy in search of a better life.
In the end, though, Omar was refused boarding on the flight to Libya from Egypt. His cousin made the journey alone. “I would’ve died with him,” Omar said.
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Less than two years later, Omar decided to try again. “I left Egypt to find a better life,” he said. “I wasn’t afraid by what happened to my cousin.”
