How desperate must people be to leave their homeland, their families, their children? To embark on an odyssey with an uncertain outcome? To have to hide as so-called illegal immigrants or be exploited as forced prostitutes when they finally reach the cold, inhospitable Europe? Klaus Brinkbäumer traveled along the central route of refugees through seven African countries. He tells the story of his companion John Ampan from Ghana, who took five years to reach Europe because he was deported, abandoned in the desert, and imprisoned; he shares the story of Jane Aimufua from Benin City, who left her three children behind to earn money for them in Europe; and he recounts the experiences of all the people he encountered along the way, on trucks, in the Sahara, in the mountains, and in the basements of Agade.