Ονομάζομαι Hussam Al Hasan. Είμαι 24 ετών και κατάγομαι από την πόλη Χαλέπι της Συρίας. Είμαι παντρεμένος και έχω μια κόρη. Η οικογένειά μου μένει στην Ολλανδία. Έχω κάνει αίτηση για οικογενειακή επανένωση και περιμένω τα έγγραφα μου. Ωστόσο, αυτή η διαδικασία είναι πολύ χρονοβόρα καθώς πολύ πρόσφυγες έχουν κάνει την σχετική αίτηση.
Δεν περνάμε πολύ ωραία εδώ, διότι δεν κάνουμε σχεδόν τίποτα στην καθημερινότητά μας. Τώρα, είμαι μέλος μιας κοινότητας εδώ στο προσφυγικό κέντρο και βοηθάω τους πρόσφυγες, επειδή γνωρίζω να μιλάω αγγλικά. Αρκετοί πρόσφυγες εδώ δεν μιλούν αγγλικά. Μεταφράζοντας, βοηθάω με την επικοινωνία μεταξύ των προσφύγων και των διαφόρων ΜΚΟ που υπάρχουν στο προσφυγικό κέντρο.
Έμεινα για ένα έτος στο προσφυγικό κέντρο της Βέροιας. Στη Συρία, δεν εργαζόμουν καθώς σπούδαζα μόνο. Σπούδαζα Βιοχημεία και Βιολογία στο Πανεπιστήμιο του Χαλέπι. Στη συνέχεια, πήγα στην Τουρκία για δύο μήνες. Ύστερα, ήρθα στην Ελλάδα και στην αρχή, έμεινα στη Χίο για δύο μήνες. Στην καθημερινότητά μου εδώ, βοηθάω τις ΜΚΟ κάνοντας μετάφραση. Μερικές φορές, βοηθάω έναν δικηγόρο που βρίσκεται εδώ, να στείλει τα ονόματα των συνεντευξιαζόμενων, στα γραφεία του Ασύλου στην Θεσσαλονίκη και την Αθήνα.
Το μοναδικό όνειρό μου είναι να βρεθώ ξανά με την γυναίκα και την κόρη μου και αν είναι εφικτό να ολοκληρώσω τις σπουδές μου.

My name is Kamar and I come from Aleppo in Syria.

I lived in Aleppo for 17 years. I graduated from high school and then moved to Sweida, a city in southern Syria, because I was admitted to the university with a focus on decoration.

When I had finished my second year, my mother decided that we could flee from Syria. This because of the war or rather the revolution. My mother and dad decided we should go to Sweden. I called my mom one day and talked to her as I usually do, but all of a sudden she told me that they would sell the house. Then I understood that they were serious.

My siblings moved to me in Sweida. First my mother fled in December 2012. She fled across the ocean, with the help of a smuggler,. We are five children and I am the oldest. Everyone moved to me and I became a mother, sister, student, teacher and everything. My dad also moved, but it took a bit longer before he had moved all the furniture and sold the house. Then my mother got a residence permit in Sweden and decided to reunite the family. She sent a request to the Migration Board.

Actually, I did’nt want to leave my studies. I was on my last year and hade the possiblility to work in decoration, as I wanted. But I had to leave everything, I had no choice. The police came to my university, I was persecuted and they interrogated me several times. I had no choice to stay in Sweida and my parents had left. I had to leave the country.

We arrived in Turkey. We were interviewed at Ankara embassy after 1.5 years. After the interview, I was not approved because I was over 18 years old. Then my father and siblings traveled to Sweden. I took them to the airport and took good care of the family.

I stayed in Turkey for 1.5 years without being able to return, leave the country, study or work. I did not know what to do. After 1,5 years I called to Mom and told her to either fly on or I will return to Syria. I told her it did’nt matter what happened, I wanted to return to my studies, my classmates continue with my studies. Mom said I had to wait a little bit for her to send me some money, so I could go to Sweden.

Mom did’nt want me to travel through the ocean with a rubber boat. She herself had tried to travel through the sea five times. One of the times she and my brother Rami were almost drowning. After that she decided not to risk her son and sent him back to me in Sweida. Then she succeded.

I told my mother to take a regular boat from port to port. But I lied. Instead I went to Izmir and got in touch with a smuggler. I paid half of the sum it would have cost for a regular boat.

The rubber boat was three meters long and we were 25 people. The smugglers told us to throw away all our bags. But I didn’t want to, because my mom bought the bag for me during high school. The boat went out to sea and then it took in water. After a while the water reached the stomach. Then the rubber boat stopped and we started to drain the water with our hands and shoes. The boat stopped three times along the way.

One of the people in the boat had tried to flee five times. Suddenly he saw a light and shouted: police! The boat rolled over and everyone ended up in the ocean. Then my feelings came all over me. How could I not have told my mother? Imagine if I die now! I prayed to God: please don’t let me die! I have lied to mom. Last I talked to her every day before. I told you I was going tomorrow but the battery was over. After three hours in the ocean, the light approached and it turns out to be a fishing boat. They picked us up. We were lucky we were in the Greek part of the sea and not in the Turkish. The Greek ships came and picked us up.

When I came to Sweden, I started with SFI. In February, I had an interview with the Migration Board. In May, I got a residence permit. In Mars I had an exhibition and started learning the language. Then I was adopted at the Österlen Art School for Art and Design in Simrishamn. I graduated in two years.

I learned a lot during the education and developed my Swedish. I gained many new contacts and it helped me to choose the right way in the new country. During these two years I worked in a retirement home. School time was from 9-16 and then I worked from kl. 16-22 and weekends with people with Alzheimer’s. I learned to play the cello. Then I continued with Swedish at a distance course. I finished with Swedish 1 but not with the rest.

I finished my education and wanted to go to a university, but I still had Swedish and English left. So instead I searched for Malmö University of Applied Sciences. I studied “content producer”. I started last year and graduated on November 25th. As I am ambitious I found a course called “content manager”. I did’ nt want to lose that course as it complements my education. So I started studying two courses at the same time. I worked at the MAFF Malmö Arab Film Festival at the same time and I worked with them again this year. I also practiced in two departments on SVT, the children’s channel with a program called summer holidays, as a graphic assistant and on SVT design. Yes, things are happening!

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

Svenska: Jag heter Sham och är 12 år gammal. Jag kommer från Aleppo och kom till Sverige för en vecka sedan. Jag har ritat min familj som är utspridda i olika länder.

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

I came to Denmark at the start of 2015, to Frederiksberg Municipality. I had been at an asylum centre before. I fled from a war. I didn’t choose to come to Denmark.
In Syria I studied French Literature while I worked at my family’s firm but the war kept on getting worse and worse. First I went to Algeria to see if I could continue my education, but they close applications from Syrians. I also tried something in Libya but it didn’t work either. I tried to work as a welder in Libya but the civil war there got really, really bad too. I could not got back to Syria because of the war there. So I took a boat and sailed across the Mediterranean to Italy. I lost 6 kilos in the process since there was no food in the boat. I was stopped in Germany but I managed to come to Denmark because my brother was here.

At the start things were really good. They accepted my asylum claim and was sent from Sandholm asylum centre and then to Fyn, Sønderborg and finally Frederiksberg where I got my residence permit. I lived in a small room and waited until I could get into language school. I started working as a volunteer with NGO’s like Venligboerne, Sprogcafeén etc. I studied at Krogerup Højskole so that my language and grammar could get better. I also took some courses and volunteer work with some culture projects.

I was then an intern at a welding firm, but I did not get an offer to work there  with a real market wage. I got a job in Café Freunde in Trekroner and finally when my Danish was good enough a job as a translator with the translation firm Tolk Danmark. I was then able to get an apartment, a car etc
I want to earn my own money, pay taxes, contribute. I like to work and contribute. I also help at a Café and I would like to become a social worker.
If the situation in Syria ever got a lot better, I would like to go back. But when I get married, things might change.

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.

I had a beautiful life before the war. I was a successful tailor and I had one business in Aleppo and another one in Lebanon where I had several men and women employed, respectively. Life was good and I enjoyed it very much in all its aspects.When the war broke out in Syria I left for Beirut, where I lived in a suburban area called Zahlé. I had spent so much time in Lebanon during the years that my accent was Lebanese and everybody thought I was from the area myself. At the end of 2012 I got a message that one in my family had died and as a result of a misunderstanding I thought it was my mother, and so I went back to Syria, where I was caught up in the village Manbij for 11 months, because the road to Aleppo was closed as the area was under the control of different groups such as Kurds, Daesh and others.

After 11 months I decided to pay thousands of dollars to get through the check-points that were placed along the road to Lebanon, because I wanted to go back to Beirut to check up on my business. When I arrived to my store I was held up by men from Hezbollah and they brought me to my own apartment, which they now had taken possession of, and I was interrogated by the commander, who just a few years back was a junkie. I was asked why I had spent time in Syria and the only thing that saved my life was the fact that some of the parents of the girls who were working for me assured the Hezbollah that I was a good person and had not done anything. The commander, however, advised me to leave for Syria and so I went back to Manbij.

I had lost everything I owned in Lebanon, and I knew that I was just lucky to have survived. And now as Aleppo was being bombed my family had moved to Manbij also, where I together with my sister opened a local school for children: There were so many refugee families who were living in tents and as they experienced winter for the first time, I would fill up my car with blankets, clothing and food; I helped because there was a need and when I did not have more money, I received donations and brought them to families. At this point most of my old friends had died in Aleppo from the intense bombings.

Daesh was controlling the village nearby, and at the beginning they formed a group of 25 persons in Manbij, where the frontlines were shifting all the time, as one group after the other would take control of the streets. I actually could follow the battles going back and forth, because I had bought a walkie talkie as a lot of other villagers had. At one point Daesh gained control of the streets, but when they revealed the ugly face of their ideology forcing women to cover themselves and the men to let their beard grow, quit smoking and restrain themselves to an extreme degree, the villagers rebelled and fought back and Daesh lost. However, they came to my door and tried to recruit me.

Together with my father and the rest of my family I decided that I should leave for Turkey, and so it was arranged that I went with a smugglers car. But my family later called me and told me also to leave Turkey, so it was arranged with smugglers´ that I would be taken in boat to Greece with a group of other refugees. We were 20 people in total and the smugglers transported us in a van that was dark and claustrophobic and I just prayed that everything would be ok.
However, the engine of the boat that was going to take us to Greece had broken down and the smugglers rather abruptly left us in the forest for 2 weeks with almost no food and very little water. Among us there was a group of Afghans and one of them began to threaten a Christian woman because of her religion, and so I and some of the others had to ask them to leave, which they did. I do not know what happened to them or if they ever got out of the forest.

I survived with the rest by drinking water from the river, and eating bark and leafs from the trees. During the first week w gave our food to the children, but after that it was the goat herders who would give us something to eat occasionally. After 2 weeks we decided to try to find a way out of the forest, and so we marked the trees, so we could find back if we got really desperate, but instead we met the smugglers who were ready and finally had fixed the engine for the boat.

It was 2 o´clock in the morning and the guy who was in charge of taking us to Greece on the boat was wearing a diving suit, but the life jackets we each had paid 100 dollars for were not working. I knew that after around 2 and a half hours on the sea we would reach Greek waters and then the border patrol could not send us back to Turkey. I would look at my watch, because my phone was placed in a plastic bag with the others´ phones. After half an hour the guy in the diving suit disappeared in the sea, and while the women and children were screaming I had to take over the steering and as I could see light in the horizon, I made the lights our destination.

The lights that I could see were actually from the airport of Athens, and when the sun began to rise we began to see a lot of small fishing boats. And at 7 o´clock we reached land: It was a lovely beach and there were some ordinary people there who saw us arrive in the rubber dinghy and was chocked. We destroyed the rubber dinghy, because we had heard that they sometimes would send refugees back to Turkey if their boat was intact.

On the Greek beach we were soon met by the police, who had been informed about our arrival from the Turkish coast guard that had seen us on sea. They arrested us and did body searches and then they took us to a prison, where we stayed for several days. Amnesty International would bring us food until we were sent to an asylum centre, where we stayed 1 month and could buy our own food. After that we were sent to a prison again, where it was decided whether or not we were given papers and a temporary residence permit: Most of the refugees in the prison were from Syria and almost none of them were sent back. I luckily got 6 months of residence permit.

I had a good and for a boy-my-age normal life in my city. I lived in an apartment with my family and would go to school. I had two hobbies and one of them is chess and the other one is swimming; back in Syria I took a swimming certificate. I had many friends and would work on my computer, which is something that I like a lot and also would like to work with sometime in the future. Two careers I have in my mind and would like to explore are soft engineering and data science.  One day some men from the mosque came to my house and said that the government would bomb the area in Aleppo where I lived, and so I went out to the countryside to a small village, where my family originally is from near Turkey. I remember that I one day had climbed to the roof of the house together with my cousin, and I stood there and looked at a huge plane that made a lot of noise and suddenly dropped a bomb that left a cloud of smoke. I stood without any emotion, because I just associated the plane with the game “general zero hour”. At the beginning of the war it was usually the countryside the government bombed, but as the conflict progressed it would be the bigger cities they would target.

Every day I could hear the noise from the bomber and I could see it on the sky over our rooftop, but I was not afraid, because I always thought that if I died, I died and that was it. But my entire family was scared and thinking back now I do admit that I was scared of being wounded, so that I would have to have a limb or maybe several limbs amputated and as a result of the physical damage be forced to live with the pain and tangible disability and possible social exclusion from society.

After some weeks, my family and I decided to flee to Turkey, and we drove in car to the border, where we waited for 20 days on the pavement together with several hundreds of other refugees, and for each day there would be more and more. But it was calm and ok and after 20 days we crossed the border and entered Turkey and drove to Urfa where some of my mother´s family lives. We    lived in a tent on the street together with 30.000 other refugees from Syria and it was like a camp.    It was organised by the Red Cross and UNICEF, and I would go to school there and also work as a volunteer playing with younger kids. All the refugees were given a card so that they could buy food in the store in the camp, so they did not starve.

When I was 16 years old I went to Istanbul by myself, because my former neighbour from Aleppo was there and because I wanted to get a job and save up some money. I had already learned to speak Turkish in the camp, and so it was not a problem for me to communicate with people at all. I earned my money by ironing shirts and washing the part inside of buses such as seats and windows. The disadvantage was that I could not go to school during this period, the advantage, though, was that I got to save up money for my journey to Denmark.
After 8 months I decided to go to Denmark with my uncle and his two children because I had another uncle who lived there. We first went in a small boat to Mytilini on Lesbos from Ismir : We were perhaps 50 persons in the boat, and actually there was no space for me, and so I threw away my swim ring as it took up space. I remember the sun was rising as we got out on the sea, and most of the others were scared, because water was entering the boat and at one point we actually were sitting in water that reached the middle part of our shin: I tried to pour out water with a shoe, but the rising sun made me dizzy and I just had to sit still until we reached the island. It took 50 minutes to reach the island and we had to climb a steep slope, and I remember that my cousin and I who were the youngest ones just ran, also because I only carried one bag with me.

From the island we took the ferry to Athens, where we stayed for some days. The Greek people were nice to us and the yoghurt was really good, but it was impossible for us to get a hotel room. We then went through the Balkans in bus and in train, and in Croatia our trained stopped for several hours, as somebody pulled the emergency brake. In all the different countries that we passed through I would usually say that my uncle was my father and that my cousins were my siblings, and I did it because it just felt easier not to explain. But when we finally reached Berlin, I told the police that my uncle was my uncle, and I did it because I felt safer there than I had done in other places. I really liked Berlin as it seemed like a really nice city, even though I just stayed there for a couple of hours.

From Berlin we took the train to Copenhagen, where we ended up in Sandholmlejren for one week, and we were then moved to another camp, and later again to at third refugee camp. And from there     I moved to Langeland by myself to a centre for refugee children, where I stayed for 6 months. I then was reunited with my sister who had arrived to Denmark and together with her I moved to a temporary housing in Copenhagen, where I began to go to school and improve my language skills. After another 6 months I got an apartment with a friend in a nice neighbourhood.

Right now I am taking 10. klasse, and I will get my certificate next summer. And next year I hope to be in HTX and hopefully after that I will able to enter the University and get a degree. My parents have now arrived to Denmark after a family reunification that took more than a year to get formalized, and they have their own apartment in another part of Copenhagen.

I am very optimistic about my future. I am applying for a student job in one of the supermarkets, so that I can be financially independent and buy some things for myself. I am now a skilled swimmer and this summer, when we had record high temperatures, I would go and swim in the harbour every day, because I enjoy it so much. I still play chess, also as a chess-volunteer in the housing where I used to live, and now I also play the violin and practice every second week, soon to be every week. My violin teacher is very good and she has played for the queen many times, and I really hope to be skilled at playing myself, even though I know that I have to practice a lot. I like classical music.

I lived a regular life in Aleppo, like any human being. I went to school and played with friends when I was little. I remember I did not go out often, because there were big streets and cars. I have 3 siblings and I’m the middle child. I loved going out and staying out for a long time.

I loved going to the Alnerab refugee camp, where everyone knows each other. Aleppo is a big city with five million inhabitants. A city that never sleeps. You could always find things to do there. It is also a cultural city. I became interested in drama when I was 15 years old. I loved reading a lot, so I started studying drama. The war started when I had studied 1 year at the university.

After 1.5 years, I decided to leave Syria. I am Palestinian, born in Syria. The only Arab country that received us was Algeria. I enjoyed the country. The people were very nice and it was a very nice country. But it was hard to get paper to stay there. If I had been able to get a residence permit in Algeria, I would have stayed there all my life. In Algeria I had to go to the police every month to prove that I’m on this planet. Otherwise they counted me like I did’nt exist.

I decided to work and save some money, to be able to flee again. I fled to Libya and then via boat to Italy. I had no feelings, I was not afraid. It felt like it did’nt matter if I died. But the whole trip was tough with a lot of difficulties. The goal was Holland. I had heard a lot about the country and the cultural life there. I arrived in Holland. But my brother called me and told me that Sweden is a better country when it comes to migration. He was right.

I went to Sweden instead. I’m having a good time in Sweden, but I had to struggle. The difference between Sweden and Syria is that in Sweden fighting leeds to results. I have learned Swedish and right now I work full time. My family has also come to Sweden.

My goal in the future is to work in the theater industry. I have a friend who is a very good pianist in Aleppo. He did’nt  want to flee. He stayed and usually he jokes: Somebody has to stay and die, it does’nt look good if there is a war and nobody is dying.

I miss Aleppo a lot. It is a historic city with ancient traditions. 70 percent of the city has disappeared. I visited Seville in Spain  not long ago and I felt happy because it reminded me of Aleppo. The city means a lot to me. It’s a shame that historic buildings and sites are bombed during war. One should not destroy historical sites. This applies not only to Aleppo but to the whole world.

Svenska: Jag heter Motaz och är 24 år gammal.

Jag levde ett vanligt liv i Aleppo, som vilken människa som helst. Jag gick i skolan och lekte med vänner när jag var liten. Jag minns att jag inte gick ut ofta, för det var stora gator och bilar. Jag har 3 syskon och jag är mellanbarnet. Jag älskade att gå ut och vara ute länge. Jag älskade att gå till flyktingförläggningen Alnerab, där alla känner varandra.

Aleppo är en stor stad med fem miljoner invånare. En stad som aldrig sover. Man kunde alltid hitta på saker att göra, det är också en kulturell stad. Jag började intressera mig för teater när jag var 15 år gammal. Jag älskade att läsa mycket, så jag började studera teater. Kriget startade när jag hade studerat 1 år på universitetet.

Efter 1,5 år bestämde jag mig för att lämna Syrien. Jag är palestinier, född i Syrien. Det enda arabiska landet som tog emot oss var Algeriet. Jag trivdes i landet. Människorna var mycket trevliga och det var ett mycket fint land. Men det var svårt att få papper för att stanna kvar där. Om jag hade kunnat få uppehållstillstånd i Algeriet så skulle jag ha stannat där hela livet. I Algeriet var jag tvungen att gå till polisen varje månad för att bevisa att jag finns på denna planet. Annars räknade de mig som att jag inte fanns.

Jag bestämde mig för att arbeta och spara pengar, för att kunna fly vidare. Jag flydde till Libyen och sedan via båt till Italien. Jag hade inga känslor, jag var inte rädd. Det kändes som att det inte spelade någon roll om jag dog. Men hela resan var tuff med en massa svårigheter. Målet var Holland. Jag hade hört mycket om landet och kulturlivet där. Jag kom fram till Holland. Men min bror ringde mig och berättade att Sverige är ett bättre land när det gäller migration. Han hade rätt. Jag åkte dit istället och jag trivs mycket bra här.

Jag trivs bra i Sverige, men jag har fått kämpa mycket. Skillnaden mot Syrien är att kämpandet ger resultat. Jag har lärt mig svenska och just nu jobbar jag heltid. Min familj har också kommit till Sverige. Mitt mål i framtiden är att arbeta inom teaterbranschen.

Jag har en vän som är en mycket duktig pianist i Aleppo. Han ville inte fly. Han stannade kvar och brukar skoja: Någon måste stanna för att dö. Det ser inte bra ut om det är krig och ingen dör.

Jag saknar Aleppo mycket. Det är en historisk stad med gamla traditioner. 70 procent av staden har försvunnit. Jag besökte Sevilla i Spanien för att tag sen och blev glad, för det påminde mig om Aleppo. Staden betyder mycket för mig. Det är synd att historiska byggnader och platser bombas under krig. Man borde inte förstöra historiska platser. Det gäller inte bara Aleppo utan hela världen.

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

My name is Hiba, is 38, Palestinians and born in Syria. I originally come from Haifa. I came to Sweden in November 2013. At the moment I work as a French teacher.

I was born in Damascus. My mother is from the Yarmuk refugee settlement and my dad is from Aleppo. I lived in Aleppo until I became 4 years old. Then my parents got a scholarship and we traveled to Bulgaria. We lived there until I finished third grade. Then my parents got work in Algeria. We moved to the capital of Algeria. There I read the fourth, fifth and sixth grade and learned french. Then there was unrest in Algeria. The president was murdered and the military went out on the streets. Then we returned to Syria

I lived in Syria and studied seventh, eighth and ninth grade in Aleppo. I continued to study in Damascus. I studied french literature at the university. I also studied to become an interpreter. After my studies, I worked as a french teacher.

I had my home and my job. There was nothing that happened that meant I that I would have to leave home or my work. Although It was obvious that the job became tougher and that life became more difficult. But I worked in a large french company and we continued our work.

I was well off economically compared to others who encountered difficulties. The economy was not a problem, it was safety. It felt like there was not enough air in Syria and did not want to stay for a single day.

During that time, many people fled through Egypt. It was legal for us Palestinians who were born in Syria to go to Egypt. The goal was to flee with a boat from Egypt to Italy. I fled at first, but I met a person from Syria, that my family knew. He was going the same way, so we decided to flee together. I thought that we could just take the boat trip the next day. But It did’nt work that way. It was much worse. Our trip was delayed for several reasons. One day they blamed the policemen, another day there was a storm, another day the smuggler did’nt answer the phone. We were 10 days late.

Meanwhile I lived with an Egyptian family, where I felt more than welcome. Then the day came when I was going to flee futher away. At first we had to take small boats that would take us to bigger boats. They were fishing boats. On the way through the sea, the Egyptian boat police came from all directions. We saw a lot of lights from their boats and they jumped into our boat and arrested us. They took us back to an Egyptian military base and there we had to stay one night. Children began to cry and people were worried. We did’nt know what would happen to us. Then they took us to a prison called “Qarmoz”.

The prison is located a bit outside of Alexandria and is known to be a prison for drug dealers. We were shocked. People cried and everything we had paid to the smugglers had disappeared. What would happen? Our papers and passports had disappeared. You can’t imagine what a shock we had. They told us to book the trip. What are you waiting for, book and go home! You will not get a residence permit in Egypt!

I think everything had a meaning, because the same night we were going to flee over the ocean, there was another boat that dropped and many died. We might have drowned if we had not been taken by the police. It could have been really bad. I have learned this lesson during the trip:  it could have been a lot worse. One should be grateful.

After 18 days I came out of Qarmouz. I booked a trip to Turkey. I went through difficult situations, fatigue and I was imprisoned. I had no future in Turkey, so I decided to continue.

Smugglers are not nice people and not human. They screamed and hurried with us. They never told us where we were and where we would go. It was just to come along. They treated people as sheep. We told them that we are people that they should talk to us!

The second lesson I learned during the flight was to swich off. I am a person who pay too much attention to details. But you can feel bad if you pay too much attention to all the details around you. I tried to think of something else and not look at what was happening around me, because it was so scary. It felt like something bad would happen. I noticed that the smugglers were criminals. I thought about how we would be able to have room enough in the small rubber boat.
Many people looking at me because I was a woman and I fled alone.

So I swiched off and started looking at the beautiful night. Beautiful stars. We walked around in a beautiful nature.

I don’t know why, but the boat trip was not scary to me. It was dark and the engine in the boat worked. I noticed that we approached land. We were worried that Greek police would catch us and send us back. I’ve heard that some refugees have tryed to flee 10 times. I know of someone who eventually chose to swim over, but was taken. This was my first try and I am grateful that I succeeded.

The trip was much easier when I arrived in Athens. I lived with a family that I had known before. I contacted a smuggler. It was easy to find French paper for me. I could speak different languages and my appearance helped a lot. I then took the flight, landed in a country and then I arrived at Copenhagen. Then I took the train to my mother in Malmö. She had already got there before me.

After five months, I got a residence permit. After three months, I began to learn Swedish. After five months, I got an internship and started working. I’m happy with my life in Sweden.

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