lifestyle

Hani was 17 when she fled her war-torn home in a tiny boat.

Somali poet Warsan Shire once wrote “no one leaves home, unless home is the mouth of a shark”.

For Hani Abdile and her family, that exactly what their homeland felt like. After two decades of protracted civil war, more than 500,000 of her countrymen had been killed and famine was rife.

And so, at just 17 years old, she struck a deal with a people smuggler for passage to safety.

This is her story.