Feature: Facing deadly voyages to Europe, Syrian refugees in Egypt vary on future plans

Three years ago, like many of his fellow Syrian countrymen, Safwan Mohammed fled his war-torn hometown to Egypt, where only in recent days did he stop taking as a transit to Italy.

For a great number of refugees like the 30-year old Syrian, European nations have always been their final destinations to shed away from turmoil and to start new lives, even if the voyage means that they have to face the dangerous boat trip across the Mediterranean sea that could easily cost their lives.

"The sinking and death of many migrants while illegally smuggled to Europe in the Mediterranean made me change my mind," said Safwan.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said recently that some 1,600 refugees and migrants have drowned so far this year while crossing the Mediterranean to Europe.

The most recent shipwreck, occurred earlier this month, has claimed as many as some 700 refugees some 130 miles south of Lampedusa, Italy. A week prior to that, more than 400 migrants drowned after their vessel sank off the Libyan coast.

Safwan used to live in the Syrian capital of Damascus, yet after the war between the rebels and the government troops reached the suburbs of the city, he decided that it was time to say good-bye to his homeland.

The man works in a public bathroom in Cairo's upscale Maadi neighborhood. Yet he said his early life in the country was simply tough.

"I thought Egypt was the best place for me since it is safe and cheap, but my first three months here were more than horrible," said Safwan.

According to Safwan, his job could barely feed him and pay the rent of a room he shared with others. While struggling to support himself, he started to consider looking for a better place and a better life.

Some of his friends told him that he could join them in a sea trip heading to Italy with the help of smugglers. However, the illegal voyage would cost him 3,000 U.S. dollars, which he could hardly afford.

"If I had the money, I would have made it," he said. "But I think I'm lucky because many boats sank in the sea and many migrants died."

Ahmed, another Syrian living in Cairo who refused to give his full name, said he is determined to travel to Europe by any means because he cannot live in Egypt anymore.

"Egypt is not the best place for me," said Ahmed who works as a salesman at menswear shop in downtown Cairo. "My job is not good and I don't make much money to help my family."

The 22-year-old young man came to Egypt in 2012 from war-stricken Syrian city of Homs with his eight-member family. His two older brothers have already managed to get into Europe through legal ways.

Ahmed said his brothers have been trying to help him leave Egypt legally, but all their efforts have not yielded any results so far.

"I might seriously think of traveling to Italy across the sea," he added.

According to UNHCR, 133,862 of 3,977,538 Syrian refugees have fled the ongoing civil war which started in 2011 and are based in Egypt now.

Like Safwan and Ahmed, most of the Syrian refugees in Egypt have to cope with miserable economic and social conditions due to the lack of jobs. They had to choose to take jobs they had little experience in back home.

Besides that, Ahmed said the ill-treatment by Egyptians after the ouster by the army of the Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in July 2013 was another reason that prompts him to leave no matter how dangerous the sea trip could be.

"After the uprising that toppled Morsi, a Syrian is referred to as a terrorist because some of us supported Morsi," he said.

In 2014, the European Union (EU) leaders suspended the Mare Nostrum search and rescue operation, which found and saved more than 100,000 migrants at sea, and replaced it with Triton, a border patrol operation with less than a third of the budget.

The EU made this decision after the UK government refused to pay more funds to the Mare Nostrum operation.

Facing such a massive number of deaths of shelter-seekers, and many more narrowly-escaped still camping on the southern shore of the Mediterranean, the EU has unveiled a ten-point action plan to step up rescues, fight smuggling, and spread the burden of taking refugees. Nevertheless, the new plan has been described as merely inadequate.

Nuria Fernandez, program manager at International Organization for Migration (IOM) told Xinhua that the European governments should open more legal channels for migration, urging for reestablishing the search and rescue operations at the Mediterranean.

What the expert suggest is right, but never enough. For Safwan and Ahmed, and millions more refugees like them, they choose to take huge risks for better lives simply because they can not have them back in their homes.

Such a refugee crisis needs a global response, and it would be most effective if nations worldwide could join hands to make this world of ours a better place so that no one has to leave their homes behind. Endite