A lot has been written about refugees in the last two years. But rarely do we hear from the refugees themselves in more than just soundbites. GlobalPost, an international news organization within the PRI family, commissioned essays from five young Syrians who all made the difficult decision to leave their homes — and undertake a menacing journey out of the country, to Turkey, to Greece and across southern Europe. This essay by Yilmaz Ibrahim Basha, 24, was originally published on PRI.org on May 31, 2016, and is republished here with permission. In 2013, I was captured and imprisoned by ISIS. I was held in a prison cell in Raqqa, the capital of the Islamic State, for a month. The first cell was a tiny closet, 3 feet wide and only a foot deep. I stood in there with three other guys for 12 hours. It was dark, like a grave. I could hardly breathe. In the early morning they took us to a bigger cell to pray and I stayed there for two more days. Most of the prisoners were Free Syrian Army fighters, journalists and activists. They questioned me twice during those two days. They thought I was a paid spy for America and Turkey. Eventually they led me out of the cell, blindfolded and handcuffed. Some of them said they would take me to Mosul in Iraq to their military court. Others said they would kill us in the center of Raqqa, which was a famous place for public executions. All that turned out to be lies just to terrify us. They put us in a minibus and drove for about two hours. I thought we were really going to Iraq. Then they stopped in the desert; I could just see through the band over my eyes. Some prisoners started praying because they thought we would be executed. They made us hold each other’s hands. They took us down inside a basement. They put us in a small room and took our blindfolds off. We were five people. They brought a small dish of rice and three pieces of bread for us all. They beat me with a cable. I was a journalist. I had been trying to make a film in Raqqa. They took my camera. They took my laptop. And they took all my film. They nearly took my life. After a month, they finally released me. It was thanks to some members of local clans in Raqqa that I knew before. They negotiated for my release. I was so happy to be free again. But I was not really free. Syria was no longer a safe place for me. Fighters from ISIS could come for me again any time. And when I called my family to tell them I was released, my father told me I shouldn’t go back to my home in Ras al-Ein, which is in northwest Syria, near the Turkish border. He said the situation there was too dangerous for me. I was wanted by the regime and other parties for my work as a journalist. So I made some calls to friends. I determined that Turkey was the safest place for me to go. At that time, in July 2013, it was still possible to safely cross the border with Turkey. I decided to go to Istanbul because it was a big city and I thought that finding a job there might be easier for me. But the French Embassy in Ankara had asked to meet me, so I went there first. They wanted to ask me about the French journalists who had been kidnapped by ISIS. They thought I might have some information about them. They also asked me about ISIS in general, and about my experience in Raqqa. When I finally arrived in Istanbul I went to a hostel first with some friends and tried very hard to find a job. But it was all in vain. The little money I had saved was becoming less and less every day. Without work it is difficult anywhere. In Turkey, searching for a proper job is like looking for a needle in a pile of straw. They ask you to work no less than 15 hours a day with a salary that will not be enough to cover even rent. I started to become hopeless and desperate. Language was the first problem since I didn't speak any Turkish. Being Syrian was another problem because they didn't like us. Employers discriminated against us. I met people who were forced to do hard labor for little money. They lived like robots. I didn’t want that. But as they say, when a door closes another one opens. There was a conference in Istanbul to discuss the situation in Syria. That was September 2013. I was invited to it because I was an activist and a former prisoner. At the conference I met Ahmad Tuma, who is the head of the exiled Syrian interim government. He knew I had worked before in the media and asked me to work with them as a photographer and cameraman. I was excited to become part of a project that might shed light on Syria's conflict and the terrible existence of so many Syrian refugees. I wanted the whole world to see these facts, to understand the devastation of what was happening. So I moved to Gazientap, which is close to the Syrian border.