Desperate Gazans flee to Europe in risky sea trips

ABASSAN, Gaza Strip (AP) — The university student was desperate to flee Gaza after suffering through years of border closures and three wars.

In early September, a week after the latest war between Gaza's ruling Hamas and Israel, 22-year-old Mohammed Abu Toaimeh crossed into neighboring Egypt. He handed $2,000 to traffickers and boarded a ship that was to smuggle him to Europe.

Instead, he and dozens of other Gazans are missing amid reports that smugglers sank their vessel on purpose.

Mohammed's mother, Ahlam, is plagued by guilt because she helped him scrape together money for the trip. "I had hoped he could begin a new life, better than this life of war and destruction," she said in between sobs.

In the past two months, more than 1,300 Gazans are believed to have gone to Egypt, some even sneaking in through a border tunnel, to embark on illicit sea voyages, said Ramy Abdu, a human rights activist tracking the trafficking.

It's a new escape route and a measure of growing desperation in the crowded sliver of land where two-thirds of those under 30 are unemployed.