The renewed rise in irregular migration (Tahriib) among Somali youth is raising difficult questions about the country’s future. Public attention often focuses on the dangers of Libya and the Mediterranean, but the more important question lies much closer to home: why are growing numbers of young Somalis willing to risk one of the most dangerous migration routes in the world?
This is not a new story. Somalia has experienced similar waves of irregular migration before, especially during periods of insecurity and limited opportunity. What feels different today is how normal the idea of leaving has become. For many young people, tahriib is no longer an extraordinary decision. It is part of everyday conversation, discussed openly, planned quietly, and sometimes financed by families who see it as one of the few available options.
The journey itself has also changed. Smuggling networks have made the route feel more organized and accessible than before. Young people move from Mogadishu through Egypt and into Libya with increasing speed, often without families fully understanding what is happening until they receive a call from Tripoli or from a detention centre. By that point, the decision has already been made, and what remains is uncertainty.
For most migrants, Libya is not the destination. It is a transit point that often turns into a prolonged period of waiting, fear, and exploitation. Many end up in detention centres where conditions are harsh and where extortion and abuse are widely reported. What begins as a search for opportunity often becomes months of confinement and uncertainty.
But the problem is not only what happens along the way. It is what these journeys reveal about the starting point.
Seeking a better life is not wrong. Every young person has the right to look for education, work, and dignity wherever they believe they can find it. The deeper concern is that for many young Somalis, leaving is beginning to feel more realistic than staying.
I saw this reality recently in a very personal way.
While sitting in a café, I overheard a conversation about a young man trying to send nearly four thousand dollars to help his younger brother. The brother had left Somalia at the end of 2025, travelled through Egypt, and reached Libya expecting a short stop before continuing to Europe. Instead, he was arrested before reaching the coast and has remained in detention since then.
The young man explained his situation clearly. If he pays the money, there is no guarantee his brother will be released or allowed to continue the journey. If he does not, his brother may remain in detention for an unknown period. After nine months, all promises made by smugglers had already collapsed, leaving only uncertainty and pressure on the family to keep paying.
What stood out in that moment was not just the desperation, but how familiar it felt. For many families, this has become a repeated pattern: payments, promises, detention, and silence.
There is also a darker layer to this system. Some of those involved in smuggling networks are former migrants who were once stranded in Libya and later became part of the same system that had trapped them. Over time, migration has become not only a journey, but an informal economy built on movement, payment, and risk.
Recent returns of Somali citizens from Libya highlight this reality again. Many of those brought back had spent months in detention under difficult conditions, with limited access to healthcare and constant uncertainty about their future. For some, return brings relief. For others, it marks the end of a journey that carried far more cost than expected.
This raises questions that go beyond Libya.
Why does leaving still feel like one of the most realistic options for so many young people? Why do families continue to support journeys they know are dangerous? And what does it say about opportunity at home when risk elsewhere feels more acceptable?
The answers are not found in Libya alone. They lie in the gap between expectations and reality at home. Many young people do not necessarily reject Somalia. They struggle to see a clear path forward within it.
This is where the real challenge lies.
It is not enough to focus only on discouraging migration or warning about its dangers. These messages are already well known. What is missing is a stronger sense of realistic opportunity at home, where young people can see tangible alternatives that match their ambitions.
Families, communities, and public institutions all sit within this reality. Migration is not only an individual decision; it is shaped by shared expectations, pressures, and assumptions about what a better future looks like.
No one should be blamed for wanting to leave. But when leaving becomes more believable than staying, it signals something deeper than a migration trend.
Every young Somali who dies in Libya or at sea is not only part of a statistic. They reflect a question that remains unanswered: why does building a future at home feel harder to believe in than risking everything elsewhere?
Until that question is addressed in a meaningful way, tahriib will remain not just a journey, but a reflection of how hope is being calculated by a generation trying to decide where its future lies.
Researcher & StratComms, Balqiis Insights