Today, Ibrahima is 23 and a published author. His second book, "New journey -- My voice from the shores of Africa to the roads of Europe", comes out on June 15

An only son, he decided to leave Senegal to pursue his dreams after losing both his parents. His mother died when he was 10, and his father when he was 15.

"Although I always had good grades, the time came when I couldn't continue my studies," Ibrahima said.

"My friend Mohammed told me I would end up on the street and I didn't have a future in my country. For this reason, I left without telling the aunt under whose care I had been placed."

The departure

He soon learned that the 'easy' trips to Europe he had heard about before setting off were a myth.

"It took me nine days to cross the Sahara desert," he said. "On the eighth day, we ran out of water. So the drivers left to find it. My travel companions and I waited for them for a whole day and, in the meantime, we thought we would die. Some tried to drink their urine. We burnt some bins to ask for help with smoke and when the drivers came back with water they yelled at us. But we were exhausted, desperate."

Once he reached Libya, he was taken to various prisons, crammed with other migrants in the trunk of a car.

"When they let us out, I couldn't stand on my feet, they gave us bread and water (the title of Ibrahima's first book), they hit us," he said.

"We did our business next to where we slept. The prison guards asked for money to release us, but while I had Mohammed's number to ask him to pay, others had no one to call. Two Gambians and a Nigerian told each other they needed to flee, speaking in English, but the Libyans knew the language and understood what they were saying. First, they hit them with their Kalashnikovs and then they killed them."

The violence didn't end with the triple homicide.

Those who had witnessed the scene -- including Ibrahima -- were targeted by the attackers.

"I thought I could live without arms but not without my head, so I protected it until they left," he said. "My body was full of wounds, I had an enormous one on an arm -- I still have a scar."

"When I saw the rubber dinghy on which 120 of us had to travel and they told us to take off our jeans because we risked piercing it with the buttons, I wanted to walk away," said Ibrahima.

His travel companions, however, convinced him to continue the journey.

After four hours at sea, the rubber dinghy Ibrahima was traveling upon started taking in water, he said.

"Half of the boat was starting to sink, we called out the names of our dear ones, crying hard," he said.

"We weren't just afraid of dying, we were also worried the cursed men of the Libyan coast guard would take us back. Then we saw a red sign: it was an NGO that rescued our dinghy and another one with only four survivors. I learned the word 'corpse' when I saw dozens of black bags taken on the ship.

I saw a man cry because he had seen his wife die after she fell into the water from one side of the dinghy while his daughter drowned after falling on the other side. His story pushed me to tell my own."

Exploitation in Italy

Once he arrived in Italy, Ibrahim first went to Bari, in Puglia, then Alpago, near the Veneto city of Belluno, and finally Venice, where he currently lives.

"I was able to resume my studies at the center for unaccompanied minors. For me, becoming a journalist doesn't mean interviewing the rich but speaking on behalf of the weak," he said.

In Italy, life wasn't easy. Ibrahima worked many jobs to support himself after turning 18.

"I worked as a kitchen hand for 10-11 hours a day for 300 euros a month, my employer knew about my situation and he exploited me," he said.

"I carried on because the alternative was smuggling drugs, stealing or begging for money. But I would have ruined my future in this way and I had promised my father that I would follow in the footsteps of the Senegalese journalist who had inspired me, Pape Alé Niang."

A new life

The young man's turning point came when he met the owner of Majer, a bakery in Venice, by chance.

He gave her his seat on the bus, then met her a few days later while having breakfast in one of her coffee shops.

"She recognized me and offered me breakfast and a job. Since then, my situation has increasingly improved," he said.

During this time, he also met Antonella Costantina, an activist who works for the association 'La Casa di Amadou' (Amadou's home). She welcomed him into her home, where he lived for nearly a year.

Today, Ibrahima calls Antonella 'mamy'.

"She has become family, which isn't only made of blood relations," he said. "Thanks to Antonella, I learned Italian and Venetian and, thanks to me, she learned about Senegal, which she has never visited," he explained.

Ibrahima is now visiting schools and universities to talk to students, and is meeting with magistrates, representatives of European institutions and filmmakers to talk about his experience.

"Two years ago, after my first book was published, I was called by (Matteo) Garrone's secretary who told me the filmmaker had read it. Then he invited me to attend the (Venice) Film Festival," when his film 'Io Capitano', inspired by Ibrahima's book, debuted and won the Silver Lion for Best Director in 2023.

Ibrahima ended his story by expressing the love he feels for Venice and the world beyond it: "I am Venetian, I love (Venice) and I am grateful to Venice: it is my home. But I also love it for the bridges that connect it to the islands, which are a metaphor for the connections we must learn to make for a better life in a world full of wars and violence".