It wasn't until he was bundled into a waiting police van that Daniel Okware realised he could not achieve his cherished dream. Trekking from Iboland in southern Nigeria to al-Zawia town in western Libya, Daniel had focused on achieving his lifetime passion: to earn enough money to wed his childhood sweetheart. He worked hard for two and a half years, accumulating a total of USD 7,000, only 3,000 short of his goal.

"I had almost clutched it," he told me. Daniel planned to work for eight months more to make sure he had a full USD 10,000 and some for the trip back home. His bride was waiting for him, urging him to redouble his efforts at work to reduce the duration.

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When I met him inside the transit camp, he cut a sorry figure. "As the days were approaching, I had nightly dreams of how sweet life would be. Then all hell broke loose," he said.

Daniel was at the factory working his 12-hour long shift when soldiers entered the building looking for Africans. He and three others were taken to a nearby military base.

"They told us Libya has been invaded by al-Qaida and that we should fight for Col. Gaddafi and for Africa," Daniel told me.

He had no military training and the thought of war scared him to death. Besides, what would become of his wedding plans? He said he decided to use his "Nigerian brain" to extricate himself from the situation.

"I have been in Libya long enough to know what makes a Libyan tick," he told me, feigning a smile. Using his mastery of Arabic language gained from working in the factory with Tunisians and Egyptians, he convinced one of the commanders to let him off.

"To this day, I do not know what happened to my colleagues." Daniel said he feels remorse about leaving his friends behind, but says in a situation when you have to fight for your life, there is nothing much you can do.

When he was freed, he went to his house to collect his belongings and escape to Tripoli, where he thought he could hide. Taking a few clothes with him and his savings, he sought refuge with one of his friends in Tripoli. For three days it seemed he had escaped the worse. Then on the fourth day uniformed men burst into the house of his friend, taking the two of them to a police station.

Like many stories I heard from the fleeing Africans, no criminal charges were leveled against them, leading them to think they were detained only because of the colour of their skin.

"At the police station we were searched and stripped of all our money," he told me. That is how Daniel lost his wedding money. "I felt as if the world had come to an end," he said. "But even at this stage, I said to myself, when I come out I will work hard again."

He spent a week in detention until one morning, a police van arrived at the centre and they were bundled into it.

"I did not want to get into the van," he told me. But the beatings and the threat of being shot persuaded him. I asked him why he was reluctant to get into the van to flee the violence. He said the van represented the end of his dream of ever being able to wed his sweetheart.

"There is no way I can get such money in Nigeria through honest work," he told me. He still does not want to go back to Nigeria. "How can I go back empty handed?" he said, summing up the difficult dilemma faced by many migrants fleeing Libya.

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