Philemon Sarpong said he felt the sting of dehumanization the moment he stepped into Moria camp and later the new camp. It hit him once, sharply, like a blow to the chest the realization that refugees were being reduced to numbers, trapped in conditions that stripped away dignity piece by piece. Seeing people survive in such cruelty touched him deeply. It stayed with him. He said it changed the way he looked at the world, because no human being should ever be forced to live as if their life has lost its value.

Philemon Sarpong said he felt the sting of dehumanization the moment he stepped into Moria camp and later the new camp. It hit him once, sharply, like a blow to the chest the realization that refugees were being reduced to numbers, trapped in conditions that stripped away dignity piece by piece. Seeing people survive in such cruelty touched him deeply. It stayed with him. He said it changed the way he looked at the world, because no human being should ever be forced to live as if their life has lost its value.

why i flee from Nigeria, living my love ones behind

Asylum life in Europe is a harsh awakening a reminder that no room, no camp, no cold bed here is worth the souls lost in the Sahara or the bodies swallowed by the Mediterranean. The suffering on the road should never be traded for another kind of waiting, another kind of silence.

Esua Alphonso’s first encounter with refugees in the asylum house struck him like a truth he could never unsee. He walked into rooms where people lived with fear sitting beside them like a silent roommate. And one night, he witnessed the police enter the house, searching for someone to deport. The tension, the whispers, the trembling hands, it cut into him. He saw how uncertainty breaks a person long before any journey does. That moment stayed with him. It showed him how fragile dignity becomes when the law arrives not as protection, but as a threat

AAfrica youth have to learn on how to hold their leader accountable

Philemon’s first encounter with refugees in Greece shattered him. In Moria and in the new camp, he saw people living in conditions no human should endure-tents torn by wind, children barefoot in mud, families surviving on hope that was thinning by the day. And when he entered the asylum house, he broke down in tears. People were living like nothing, he said-as if pain had become normal, as if life had been reduced to waiting. It was the moment he realized that the world had grown too comfortable with other people’s suffering.

People flee from Africa because life, in many places, has been stripped down to a daily fight for breath. They flee from wars that never end, from governments that crumble under corruption, from soldiers and militias who rule by fear. They flee hunger that eats the body slowly, and unemployment that kills the spirit long before death arrives. They flee economies looted by leaders and exploited by foreign powers, where the young grow older waiting for opportunities that never come.

They flee because the land of their ancestors has become a battlefield of stolen elections, collapsing hospitals, broken schools, and police forces that protect no one. They flee kidnappings, forced recruitment, trafficking, and the quiet terror of waking up each day not knowing if the sun will set with them still alive.

And yet, they do not flee because they hate home.
They flee because home stopped protecting them.
They flee because the road of danger feels safer than the soil that raised them.
They flee with the hope fragile, trembling, but real that somewhere in this world, a human being can simply live without fear.

But asylum becomes more terrifying war