and four children to Italy last year after enlisting 10 refugees who travelled on the same vessel, each paying $2,200.
“I tried to leave with my family 11 times but failed, and I was detained twice,” Abu Barra says.
He encountered a contractor who suggested that he recruit 10 migrants who wanted to travel illegally to Europe — in return for free seats for his wife and children.
“I got them 10 people and sent my family with them,” says Abu Barra, adding that the group was first taken from Alexandria on a small boat to another vessel and finally loaded onto a larger ship that dropped them off near the Italian coast.
“The final drop-off is usually done by those who want to fish in international waters. They take groups of 300 people or so and make the journey once a fortnight.”
Activists allege that Abu Barra has himself become a “contractor”, something the 40-year-old Syrian denies, insisting that he wants only to be united with his family.
Smugglers use contractors who are reached through social networks on the Internet such as Facebook under fictitious names like “El-Captain” and “El-Doctor”.
Activist Ahmad El-Chazli of the Egyptian Initiative of Personal Rights group says that as summer arrives, more migrants are expected to try to cross the Mediterranean from Egypt.
The UNHCR says around 219,000 people crossed the Mediterranean and 3,500 died in 2014, and so far in 2015 more than 35,000 asylum seekers and migrants have reached southern Europe.
Chazli says migrants are increasingly working with Syrian contractors whom they trust because of “their experience, better networks and ability to reach the destination”.
Bashawat sees the dangerous sea route as the way for his 17-strong family scattered across Syria, Egypt and Europe to be together again.
“Our dream is to be united again under one roof,” he says in his rented apartment as Nemr looks at the picture of his mother and sisters in their new life.