Mahmoud, 31 years old. From Aleppo, Syria
I came to Denmark in 2014. In Syria my family and I owned a textile and lingerie factory and three shops.
Before the war I felt like I was living like a king. My family had money, wealth and lived very well. We had everything; factory, shops, house, car and everything.
In 2012, during the Ramadan, the war came to Aleppo. Aleppo was the center of trade. Everything went through Aleppo to come in and out of the country. All of a sudden everything stopped. The rebel group “The free Army” started to steal everything from the factories and shops. They robbed all of our valuables. They send it all to Turkey, where “The Free Army” have a lot of support. Also Asaads army started to destroy everything. The bombed everything and bombed the whole city.
At first I moved to another part of the country that was more peaceful. The war had not been so bad there yet. I also had a shop there, so I thought I could continue my life there. While I was living in Tartus the Asaad army wanted me to join the military service. They also wanted to take my money. I did not want to kill anyone or be part of the war. The regime offered that I could give them all of my money and that way I could avoid Army service, but I did not want to give them everything I had worked for. That was the reason why I fled to Turkey. From one day to the next. I took a boat from Tartus to Turkey.
My father had a friend in Turkey, which I contacted when I got there. When I lived in Syria I didn’t really have any contact with them. Because I was in this situation my father told me to contact him, in order for him to help me. He gave me advice and suggested that I went to Europe because I would be able to build a better life for myself.
I agreed with an Agent (human trafficker) that he would arrange for me to go to Italy by boat. O paid him a lot of money to go on a safe boat. The boat he had arrange was not a safe. It was small, old and too many people were onboard. The refugees that were going to travel with me started to make trouble with the agent, because we did not want to travel on such a dangerous boat. The agent got angry, because he wanted just to give us that old inflatable boat and take our money. He did not care what happened to us. He started to threatened us with a knife. Everyone was screaming and crying, but I just started to film him and his actions.
The agent ended up giving us back our money, and we made an agreement with another agent. This time we went on a ship, but not on the ship but in the bottom of the ship in the cargo. It was dark, we had no sunlight and we were very many people. The ship was very dark and dirty. It smelled so bad of garbage and human waste. There were 850 people on the boat and only two toilets. No running water. When we saw the coast of Italy, we felt like we got a second chance at life.
Out of the 850 people travelling to Europe, only 3-4 people wanted to go to Denmark. Everyone else wanted to go to Sweden and Germany. When we reached Italy, we went to a camp for one day. Then we went by train to Milan. From Milano we went to Paris by train. From Paris to Cologne, from Cologne to Hamburg and on to Copenhagen. When we arrived at Copenhagen we went to the police at Central Station. They send me to Sandholm camp. We were in Sandholm for two hours, and they send us to Helsingør. I was there for two weeks. Then I moved on to two different camps in Jutland and finally I ended up at an asylum camp in Roskilde. 3 months later I got permission to stay in Denmark. The municipality gave me temporary accommodation at Roskilde University. I was the only refugee there. I had different interships in the municipality, in a supermarket (Bilka) in Ishøj. After that I got a job in Ringsted where I worked with construction. The first of May 2015 I came to Roskilde municipality, the first of May 2016 I got my job, and the first of May 2017 I moved into my apartment.
Dublin Core: Language: en Subject: a million stories, denmark, syria, aleppo, refugee,