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By Selam Gebrekidan and Allison Martell

CATANIA, Italy Feb 24 (Reuters) - Lucky Iz had quite recently turned 15 when he and his companion Godfrey set off to cross the Sahara on a hot August evening in 2012. Fortunate has still not told Godfrey's family what happened on the trip towards Europe. This is his record.

The Nigerian young men landed at the edge of the Sahara with water, scones, milk and caffeinated drinks, pretty much as the general population bootlegger had educated them, Lucky reviewed. They moved with 36 others onto the back of a Toyota pickup truck that dashed far from Agadez, a city in northern Niger.

Fortunate sat on a heap of supplies, clinging to a post with his feet dangling over the side. He knew the driver would not stop on the off chance that anybody tumbled off. He was dry and hungry. The sand that splashed up from under the truck's tires stung his eyes. For three days they drove, ceasing sometimes to refuel and drink their water.

On the fourth day, the driver lost his direction. His compass had quit working. Some in the gathering would never make it out of the desert.

Universal gatherings track quantities of vagrants who suffocate crossing the Mediterranean to Europe. A year ago an expected 3,800 individuals passed on that way.

Be that as it may, nobody numbers the dead of the Sahara. This makes it simpler for legislators to overlook the lives lost there, compassionate laborers say.

The United Nations displaced person office has no information on what number of individuals bite the dust in the desert, as per its North Africa unit. The International Committee of the Red Cross reconnects families, however does not gather data about their dead. A modest bunch of informal databases kept up by volunteers, scholastics and non-administrative associations have attempted to keep check, yet they depend to a great extent on media reports, and their financing is sporadic.

"We don't have any information," said Julien Brachet, a kindred at Oxford's International Migration Institute who has been doing handle work in the Sahara, including northern Niger, for over 10 years.

"It's an issue, in light of the fact that there might be the same number of individuals biting the dust in the desert as there are in the Mediterranean," he said. "We can't demonstrate it, so we can't say it, so no one is going to intercede."

LOST

Agadez has for some time been a portal to the desert. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) gauges that 120,000 transients went through the city on their approach to North Africa or Europe in 2015, more than twice the same number of as the earlier year. Before, individuals would leave the city transparently. Week by week military escorts offered some assurance.

Be that as it may, subsequent to a disaster in 2013, when 92 desert voyagers kicked the bucket of thirst, the administration has moved to close down the courses, and the activity has turned out to be more cryptic and covered up.

Lost in the sands, the driver of Lucky's truck continued going for five more days, planning to achieve a milestone and reorient himself. By then, Lucky said, all the sustenance and water was no more. Depleted travelers started to tumble off the truck during the evening. The driver did not stop for them.

"The following day, we see ourselves, and we check ourselves and a few individuals are not there any longer," said Lucky, now 18, who in the wake of landing in Europe lived for a year in a youngsters' asylum in Catania, Italy.

After a day, the vehicle came up short on fuel. Vulnerable, the voyagers processed about. That evening, a dust storm barrelled towards them.

"We were simply standing, looking. We don't know where to go," said Lucky. "We don't know how we can go out from the desert. Such a large number of individuals passed on that spot.

"My companion tumbled down and passed on," Lucky said. Everybody was crying.

"We didn't know why should going pass on next. We don't know why should going surrender next. So what do you do? The entire spot was sand, so we needed to uncover the sand with our hands and we covered him.

Promoting

"At that point we began strolling."

UNDER COVER

The Sahara in northern Niger and neighboring Mali is home to medications and arms traffickers, human dealers, hijackers and equipped Islamist aggressor assembles, some of them connected to al Qaeda.

The European Union has put Niger and different nations under weight to take action against sneaking. In 2014, the EU opened a mission in Niger to prepare the security strengths to "avoid sporadic movement." Last year, Niger passed a law banning human carrying that could see bootleggers imprisoned for up to 30 years.

However, Brachet says that might have been counter-gainful in light of the fact that it pushed a significant part of the exchange underground.

"It used to be, not inconceivable, but rather extremely troublesome for some person to forsake transients amidst the desert," said Brachet. "Presently, as it's stealthy, no one knows whether you truly achieve the point where you should drop your travelers off or not, or in the event that you cleared out them in the desert."

An EU official said it is a need to handle human dealers and other people who put the lives of helpless vagrants at danger: The coalition does not control fringes or watch in the desert, but rather underpins the powers with preparing and counsel.

The IOM, which has staff in northern Niger, is attempting to assemble better data about what number of individuals travel through the locale, and what transpires. It appraises that about 2,300 individuals go through Agadez every week. In any case, it recorded just 37 passings in the Sahara in 2015.

Last March, IOM staff went by Seguidine, a little town in Niger near the Libyan fringe. In one day they discovered 85 transients stranded, holding up under trees, deserted by bootleggers, said Giuseppe Loprete, leader of the gathering's main goal in Niger.

"The adventure is exceptionally troublesome," said Loprete. "From what they let us know, the stories, many people kick the bucket on the course."

The legislature of Niger did not react to asks for input.

Fortunate said he and alternate survivors strolled for around 10 hours before they kept running into a pickup truck on its way back to Agadez. They begged the driver to take them whatever remains of the way.

He drove them to Sabha in Libya and sold them to aggressors who constrained Lucky to work for nothing. It would be months before he could escape and advance toward Italy.

They deserted four men and two ladies in the sand - six more passings that were never recorded.