He was standing alone, frequently stepping forward to take his position in a queue that snaked for hundreds of metres into the departure lounge of the Djerba airport in Tunisia. Abdel Samad Ahmed Ibrahim, an Egyptian national, could not believe he was a few metres away from boarding an IOM chartered flight back to his homeland.

Abdel is one of 3,000 Egyptian nationals who are being repatriated on board 24 IOM chartered flights. When I met him he was in deep thought, withdrawn from his group of fellow Egyptians who were advancing at a snail’s pace towards the departure lounge.

"I am a builder, like many Egyptians in Libya," he told me when I introduced myself. "I arrived in Tripoli 16 years ago. Though I had a steady job, I did not want to bring my family to live with me in Libya, as if I had anticipated this would happen."

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Abdel told me that although life was not easy in Libya, he nevertheless managed to provide for his family back in Cairo by sending monthly remittances. The guarantee of a regular job in Libya was more than what he could find back in Egypt. He said, he was settled in Tripoli and had resigned himself to a life away from his loved ones as he only managed to visit his family once or twice a year. He had hoped to stay in Libya for four more years to send his daughter through university, when events in the country took a tense turn.

"I decided to run for my life immediately after Gaddafi's speech," Abdel told me. This was the speech that the Libyan leader made from a rooftop in Tripoli, threatening to crush the opposition "to the last drop of his blood."

Abdel remembers that when he heard the speech, he told his Egyptian mates that there would be no peace in Libya from then on. The following morning militias were roaming the streets in Tripoli. He was so scared that he did not dare to step outside his house. It was only after the food had run out that he decided to take a chance and head towards the border with Tunisia with friends in a hired taxi.

"We paid 180 dinars (USD 147) each for the 160 km ride to the Ras Al Hadjir border point," Abdel said. This amount was three times more expensive than what it used to be. But then, Abdel added, things had started to become very expensive in Tripoli, with a bottle of water going for as much as 5 dinars (USD 4), up from a mere quarter dinar.

Abdel said he was not prepared for what he and many other migrants would encounter along the road to the border. He recalled that armed men stopped them as many as ten times, each time stripping them of their belongings. It was during the ride that Abdel lost USD 2,000 which he had saved over years of hard work. In addition, he was eased of his watch, mobile phone and a whole bag full of dresses for his wife. When I found him at the airport, he was clutching a tiny bag that was all he had managed to save. "The militias turned into animals," he said. "When they order you to give them something you do not argue. One of my colleagues who tried to resist ended up with a bullet in his shin."

But on their long journey home, Abdel and other migrants also received lots of help. He recalled that while they were stuck at the border on the Libyan side, many had nothing to eat for two days. As soon as they crossed into Tunisia, people streamed to offer them food, drinks and blankets. Yet, as Abdel prepares to board his flight home, he cannot help but think of what he has had to leave behind.

"I have nothing to show my family after 16 years working in Libya," he said, sobbing. “But I am happy that I escaped the madness that is happening in Tripoli,” he added.

IOM continues to evacuate thousands of migrants stranded in Libya. Charter planes provided to IOM by the British government's Department for International Development (DFID) and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) will allow the Organization to evacuate up to 8,800 Egyptian migrants from Djerba in Tunisia to the Egyptian capital, Cairo, in the coming days.

To help IOM to get Abdel and others like him home safely, please click here.