DUBAI — Thousands of men are vanishing from Egypt's poor rural villages. Days later, they call their families to say they're in neighboring Libya and need 140,000 Egyptian pounds ($4,500) to pay smugglers promising them passage to Europe.
It's a scenario that's been repeated over and over in past years, but last year there was a notable change: The number of Egyptians leaving their country this way began to climb dramatically just as the country's economy began to plummet and inflation skyrocketed.
