Badi had a good life in Damascus. But as the war in Syria closed in on
his family, he took them to safety in Egypt and then set out for the UK.
Two months later he was in a prison cell in Togo. His story illuminates
a shadowy, corrupt network of migrant smugglers.
Badi woke up in a cheap hotel in Accra. He'd been in Ghana almost a month and his money was running out. For the tenth time that day he took out his mobile phone and called the smuggler. There was no answer.
A few days later he got a call. The smuggler said the plan had changed, that he should get in a taxi and go to Togo.
"We thought Togo was a neighbourhood of Accra, or maybe another town just down the road," says Badi. "So we got in the taxi. Turns out, Togo is a whole other country."
Life had been good in Syria before the war. He was a skilled tradesman who worked on construction sites all over Damascus. There was plenty of work - the family was not rich, but Badi had a house and a car, and his two little girls were thriving.
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