My name is Mazen and comes from Homs in Syria. We stayed at the country and football was my interest. Everyone knows the football club “Alkarameh” from Homs. We went and watched the team every weekend.
I stayed 3 years in Dubai, 2009-2011. When the conflict in Syria lasted for 7 months, my work in Dubai ended. The conflict in Homs began in May 2011 and I came back there in August. Homs was more exposed to the conflict than the other cities. I decided I could not stay. Meanwhile, my father decided to fly to Libya, so I followed to get a job and a better life. However, at the beginning of 2014, I decided to leave all the Arab countries because all the Syria must have a visa to stay, including Libya I lived in who was also in war.
I found out that I could fly to Turkey, through Greece and beyond. I compared different countries and decided to fly to Sweden. Then I met a friend who told me he knew someone who had moved to Germany and got an apartment, he showed me the pictures. I told him that, unfortunately, I do not have the money to fly from Turkey to Greece, but he said it was quiet, we are in Libya, all people fly from here.
I got to know someone who went to Sweden and gave me a smuggler’s phone number. I contacted him and asked some questions about what it would cost and explained that I was working right now. Then he answered: come to me tomorrow. I said, what do you mean tomorrow? Then the smuggler said, “Tomorrow I have a trip”. I said I will not catch because I’m working right now and have to quit, the smuggler replied that this is not fun, you want to travel so you can come tomorrow.
The first trip did not work, because it blew a lot on the sea, the other day did not work either. During these days it was very tough and tough but we tried to help. We sat with other people and asked questions, which country are you going to? What city do you want? We sat and divided Europe as if we were going to different districts. We sat and laughed, will we really end up in Germany, Holland or Sweden? Everyone had their dream.
We first went with a rubber boat that swayed a lot and then boarded the boat. We were soaked and the trip had not even started. We sat very close to each other and could not touch us. The boat trip took place from kl. 10:00 till kl. 20:00 and we did not know where we were. Suddenly, we hear that someone says that a boat is coming to us. I could not see it but managed to get up and see it.
We were in a spot in the middle of the ocean and did not know the difference on the north, south, east, or west. There was a helicopter above us. In front of us there was a big boat and there were 4 to 5 small boats circulating around us. Then we noticed that it was Italian military ships. The feelings I received were happiness and security, but I was still afraid. We had not arrived yet. We were on the island of Sicily.
They took us by bus, they visited us, then we sat on domestic flights from Sicily to Rome. I had already decided that I wanted to Sweden. I fled with two people who also came from Syria. We decided we would go together. From Rome we traveled by train to Milan. Then we called an Egyptian smuggler in Italy who would drive us with a car to France. We agreed with him that he would drive us to southern France and that it would cost 300 euros per person.
My friends fell asleep in the car, but I was up and talking to the driver. I was very afraid, it was a road filled with woods and dark roads. When we arrived we contacted a person who sent falsified passports that we could use, and told us that we could book flights using passports, from Paris to Copenhagen.
I wondered how we would be able to go through the airport with fake passports. I stopped with other people to get my boarding pass, but I did not know how to do it. In front of me there was a woman from the Philippines, I felt a lot of Filipinos from my time in Dubai and I also had some Filipino sentences, so I talked to her and asked English if she could help me get my boarding pass. We went to the street, I reached my boarding pass, it flashed green and the doors opened. It felt like the joy doors opened for us. We went into the flight and sat in different places.
When the plane flew into the sky, we felt that now it is clear that fear has disappeared.
A Million Stories Sweden: Nizar Keblawi, Nina Olsson, Sara Sarabi, Malin Gillberg, Daniel Björklund, Mats Nordström.
A Million Stories Sweden volunteers: Fariborz Ghadir, Mohamad Mohsin, Yazan Saad, Tarek Aloudallah, Dalia Saleem, Yara Ali, Ahmad Younes, Chaimae Hamri.
In association with
Dublin Core: Language: swe Subject: asylum, refugees, A Million Stories, Sweden