‘Sometimes I was hungry, thirsty, I slept in the woods, out in the open, and in the rain… We crossed rivers a few times and were soaked up to our necks. We’d freeze and could hardly wait for the morning, for the sunup, to get some warmth… It was a hard three-month journey,’ Sami Rasouli (22), a youth originally from Iran, who set off to the European Union in July 2016 from the war-torn Afghanistan as a 15-year-old, recollects for Kurir.
This journey, app. 5,500 kilometres long, had many obstacles, and a lot of fear and hardship. Serbia was not his end country, but he stayed here because of the hospitality and warmth that he felt. He arrived as a child not accompanied by his parents in 2016. He set off on a journey to a safer and better life alone – his father, mother, two brothers and three sisters returned from Afghanistan to Iran in the same year.
“They disagreed about me going alone, but I had to do it. We‘re from Iran, and lived in Afghanistan for a while, but we didn’t feel safe there because of the whole situation. My family returned to Iran, and I made my way to the EU. Generally speaking, the journey was difficult, not like going on a plane and arriving,” Sami said for Kurir.
Smugglers take his savings
He spent two months in Turkey, a little less than a month in Bulgaria, and then arrived in Serbia. Sami was in a group of about 20 more people, both children and adults. He paid 5,000 euros to a smuggler out of his parents’ savings that he had received before the departure.
“The man who led us organized it all, but they didn’t press us for money, they weren’t rough with us. I’d heard that smugglers blackmail people for money, but it wasn’t like that there. You pay for him to lead you, and if you don’t pay, it’s good-bye! One of them organizes, others lead you, yet another waits for your somewhere… I didn’t have any problems or trouble with these people,” said Sami, also remembering how tough the journey down a long route itself was, which he mostly crossed on foot.
“We were often hungry, and slept out in the open. Between Bulgaria and Serbia we walked in great heat. We travelled by night as well, and we couldn’t put our cell phone lights on, so people fell down and broke their arms or legs,” Sami said.
The most difficult thing for him was to sleep out in the open, and now he finds the uncertainly distressing as he waits for the ruling of the Administrative Court regarding his status. Sami is an asylum seeker, and the court should approve his status as a refugee or grant him subsidiary protection.
Asylum seeker
“I’d like to stay here. In Bulgaria, we lived in a camp for a few weeks, and people would look at us funny when they saw us, they weren’t exactly pleasant, whereas here it’s different. No one has said anything bad to me so far. After I arrived in Serbia, I lived in the camp in Krnjača for a while. I finished my eighth grade at The Branko Pešić Elementary School in Zemun, and then The Textile Design High School. After that I took an entrance exam and enrolled in the university. It was difficult, but what’s important is that I’ve made it. I enrolled in the Modern Fashion Department, and I’m now in year three. I haven’t had problems during my schooling – some people wanted to be friends with me, and some didn’t,” Sami said, adding:
“Here I have some friends from high school, as well as some from the university. They have accepted me well, and we spend time together.”
His parents were proud and happy to hear that he managed to enrol in the university he had wanted to. His goal is to graduate and work as a fashion designer.
“I’ve always liked it, I have some creations that I have sewn.”
Emotional conversations
‘I miss my family’
Sami has not seen his close family for seven years because he cannot go to see them, and it is too complicated for them to come to Serbia.
“I miss them… It’s all complicated, and they cannot come here. I don’t have a passport and so I cannot go see them either. I’m currently an asylum seeker, and the proceedings are ongoing. I hope to get the status of a refugee. We video-chat in the evenings, and sometimes the conversations are very emotional.
This diligent young man is exceptionally talented, and he was of the best students among the children without accompaniment. He has also won the Government of Germany’s DAFI scholarship (The Albert Einstein Fund). The organization Jesuit Refugee Service has secured an apartment for him, they pay his utility bills, and provide him with food. Before he won the DAFI scholarship, i.e. before year one of his university, the UNHCR assisted him financially, paying for a part of his living expenses – school supplies and books, preparing for university, and general necessities.
Kurir.rs/ Mina Branković
