Shahin Abdo is a 21 year old man from Mosul, Iraq.
I came to Denmark in 2015. I work at the airport, first cleaning up, but now I’m gonna work at a restaurant.
I went to high school in Iraq. I had a dream of studying English at the university. After that, I dreamt of becoming a pilot. I worked after school, fixing phones at my fathers shop, and as a photographer. When someone got married in my city, I was the one who took the pictures. I did that for three and a half years.
When ISIS came to Mosul, we left for Turkey, and stayed in Istanbul for a year. We were very poor, so I got work as a translator and in a clothing store called Sevim. There were many tourists where we lived, so that’s the reason I was able to work as a translator.
After a year, we left Turkey and went to Greece. We crossed the mediterranian sea in an inflatable boat with 35 people. I was afraid, because I did not have a life jacket, someone took it. The waves were very big, and the boat stopped twice because of the size of the waves on the sea. We arrived at Kos and were there for 25 days. Then we left for Makedonia, and then Serbia. Sometimes we took the train, but we walked most of the way. We came through Hungary, Austria, Germany and arrived in Denmark after 40 days. They drove us to Sandholm, and then the Asylum center in Helsingør. After that I came to Bornholm, where I worked at Musikhuset in Rønne, and in a hotel. While we were at Bornholm, we went to two interviews at Foreigners Service, and we were not granted asylum to stay in Denmark. But, our case went to court, and we were granted asylum.
On January 2nd 2017 we got a temporary home in Nærum. When I go to work at the airport, I have to go by bus and train for two hours, so I hope to move closer to where I work. I also attend school to learn Danish.
Dublin Core: Language: en Subject: refugee, asylum, a million stories, iraq, mosul, denmark