* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
At least 17,000 illegal migrants from the Horn of Africa leave their countries for South Africa annually, most of them transiting through Kenya, according to the U.N.'s International Organisation for Migration. Many of them pay thousands of U.S. dollars to people smugglers to reach their destination.
The majority come from Somalia where violence has killed some 21,000 civilians since the start of 2007 and uprooted a further 1.5 million people. The Horn of African nation has not known peace for two decades.
Two young Somalis, who have been forced to leave everything behind to find better life elsewhere, tell their story in this audio slideshow, part of an AlertNet special series on people smuggling in the Horn of Africa.
