article_snippet.sent: Eritreans want to escape repression or military service; Somalis flee Al-Shabaab and clan warfare; Syrians have given up hope of returning home.
article_snippet.sent: Eritreans have long been prominent among the travelers, escaping an authoritarian government, poverty and indefinite military service -- a land without possibilities.
article_snippet.sent: Worsening repression in Eritrea" has been one factor, Malakooti says -- while Eritreans already in refugee camps in Sudan have decided to make a dash for the Mediterranean.
article_snippet.sent: One reason is that other routes -- through Saudi Arabia and to Israel -- have become more difficult: Israel has adopted a much tougher approach on would-be Eritrean migrants trying to enter Israel through the Sinai desert, including detention, and Yemen's implosion has cut off that conduit.
article_snippet.sent: As one Eritrean told the humanitarian journal IRIN last year: "People were traveling to Israel because it was the only way, and now "People're traveling to Europe because it's the only way.
article_snippet.sent: The Eritrean writer Abu Bakr Khaal made the desperate voyage to and across the Mediterranean.
article_snippet.sent: In The Eritrean writer Abu Bakr Khaal novel "African Titanics," The Eritrean writer Abu Bakr Khaal describes the "dangerous lure" of escape.