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When I was in town with some colleagues of mine..
I sat on my feet and got hit in the leg, but my friends got down and were shot in the chest. They died.
In Iraq, my father was a policeman. I had two brothers and a sister.
My mother stayed at home. My father was an important policeman and everyone in the city knew my family.
It`s very hard without my mother.
I cannot talk about her. She was very important to me.
Life expectancy in Afghanistan is about 40.
And then they sent me a second letter…
”If you do not present to us for more information and declarations, then we will kill you.”
This was the main story behind why I left Afghanistan.
There was no choice to make.
If I would have said “no”, they could have killed me immediately.
If I would had decided not to work with them, it could have been worse.
In front of my eyes, I saw how they started to kill people.
I have a story about one guy that actually detected that I was not translating this in the news and he said to me: “be careful”.
He was a friend, working in the Spanish section.
He told me: “be careful, if they detect that you are not actually translating that, they will immediately kill you”.
It was not easy to go to the protest and (in the same time) to work there.
There were some guys always letting us know that they - the government – were behind me.
So, I was going out to protest, but they were putting something in front of my face just to …
(Reporter) How were these messages coming to you?
No, no, it was simply like… One time, one guy said “Hey, sir, this is… this guy is here”.
I looked behind me and I said: “Do you know who I am?” He said: “Yes, I know who you are.”
I said: “I am journalist at SANA.” And he said: “I know.”
They knew. Just to let me know, to let me feel…
(Reporter) …that they know your every move.
Elias: Exactly.
I started to think the only way to survive is to be smart enough.
Just to simulate that “OK, guys, I’m with you, I’m with the government”.
Sometimes they started to do something just to force me to say different things. But I was like all the time: “OK, you’re right, you’re right”.
I needed to survive.
They work in this way to let you feel that…
To threaten you, to make you feel like: “Hey, we control you!”, but they don’t control me. They cannot control anything.
I had been using a card for journalists working for SANA. It gave me access to any place. It was the card that saved my life.
Everyone can live nicely in their own way, no matter how rich or how poor they are.
After the terrorists came in, I think they have destroyed everything.
They ruined that beautiful country. We hope that we will be able to go back there.
Everything, even politics, starts from education.
People have to dress in black from top to bottom. The Internet is forbidden. Men are not allowed to dress in jeans.
This is not possible. At 8, everyone must go to sleep. This is not religion.
The barber must not exist, hair styles must not exist.
I teach chemistry. In Deir ez-Zor, for example, they banned chemistry for being heresy.
What does that mean, chemistry is heresy? The Islamic State, these terrorists banned chemistry because they said it is from the devil. Biology was banned as well.
They say that trying to understand the science of creation meddles with the science of God… It should be prohibited.
They banned biology and chemistry.
Syria used to be a safe country, but after the conflict, after the war, everything changed, everything was destroyed
and this is why we chose to leave the country.
The situation in Afghanistan is, unfortunately, worse.
Why didn’t I left Afghanistan ten years before?
Yesterday, in Kabul, two suicide attacks occurred. About 39 people were killed. Most of the people who were killed were civilians.
In 2013, however, many terrorists came to my city.
My city is called Kirkuk. It is a big city.
It has oil and gaz. That`s why a lot of terrorists have come to my city.
They entered the city each day, went to stores and on the streets.
They used bombs and many people died.
My mother, my sister and my brother had died this way.
We are trying to make him understand that he is strong kid, or that he is a future adult who neds to be strong.
Regardless of our unconditional help, at some point in his life, he will need to make decisions on his own,
to handle himself in critical situations on his own, because that`s what our children, Romanian citizens, are doing as well.
I stayed a month in Turkey. They found me a truck. They told me I will have to stay inside the truck for a couple of days straight until I reach the European Union.
In one night, they told me to go. We left in a car and stopped at a gas station. They opened the door of a truck and I got in.
We did not know for how long we stayed in the truck. The driver did not knwo about us.
(Reporter) You were hidden in the truck and the driver did not know about you.
Yes. If he had known he would not have let us.
After two and a half days, we reached Romania.
But my friend was having problems with his heart. He was sick. We did not have much water and food.
I got very tired and I talked with him to get out before something bad happens.
When we got out of the truck, the ambulance and the police came, but before reaching the hospital my friend died.
I escaped alone. It was very difficult.
One brother managed to go to Turkey and one sister and a brother arrived in Lebanon - because it is near Syria and it was easier for them.
I am the only one in my family who has come to Europe.
I left Afghanistan for this reason. I came to Iran, with many difficulties on the way.
Then, I crossed the border from Iran to Turkey. From Turkey, after some time, I came to Bulgaria.
We had to walk through the woods, like a jungle. We faced many animals.
It was very difficult for us.
Most of the people who are now arriving in Serbia are in very bad shape.
They are visibly in bad shape. They arrive wearing dirty clothes, with pain in their bodies, with scars,
because they travelled through woods. Many of them have scars on their faces and bruises on their hands.
We can see that many of the people who arrive need medical assistance.
They can get it in Miksaliste or in the regular Serbian hospitals.
Also, what we are seeing now is a huge problem with body lice and scabies.
These people have been traveling for a long time,
or they have stayed in camps for many months in bad conditions in terms of hygiene.
This has become a serious issue in Belgrade, especially with the population that is staying out in the open.
Over a thousand people - mostly men - are staying in the park and in abandoned buildings close to the train station.
They don’t want to leave the park because they want to stay close to the smugglers,
because they rely on smugglers to take them across the border.
Many of them are ill.
Actually, my destination was not Bulgaria, it was…
I was thinking to go to Germany, or to Sweden, or to some country where I could have better opportunities.
When I arrived here in Romania… Sorry, I was first in Serbia.
I had a plan to go to one of the European countries, where I can be safe, where I can feel free. I am free to learn.
I am free to work. I am free to improve myself.
First, I had a plan to go to France, starting by crossing the border to Hungary.
But unfortunately, the person who took us, like other human smugglers,
didn’t say that we will cross from Romania to Hungary and that then we will go to France.
First time, when we entered Romania, when I asked him “Is this Hungary?”, he said “yes, it’s Hungary”, the first time.
So, he didn’t tell me the truth.
Unfortunately, at that time, I didn’t know that Romania is a member of the European Union.
When I heard that Romania is a member of the EU
and I confirmed it, I changed my mind and I switched from France to Romania.
When I came here, I reached a city. I think it was Timișoara or… I do not know what city it was.
The, I came at the centre, here, in Giurgiu.
I stayed 2, 3 months until I received my refugee ID card.
I do not have this vein anymore.
I have seen many doctor, but they had no idea what is wrong with my leg.
It was very hard. 6000 Euro for my first operation.
Today, we had another woman travelling from Syria.
She is 8 months pregnant, but her baby is actually not well. The family travelled across the sea,
they boarded a rubber-boat in Turkey, to arrive to Greece, but the boat turned over and three of her children died.
She continued her journey to Greece - while being pregnant - with her child and her husband. After spending a couple of months there, they arrived in Serbia, but…
There are consequences - trauma - to these terrible events. So, actually, the baby is not feeling well.
The doctors will have to terminate her pregnancy. So, the woman had to leave for the hospital.
They are all telling us how they are fleeing from conflicts, they are fleeing from the military groups which are trying to, actually, recruit them, also killing their families.
Many of these children, they actually lost their mother or their father, or some other close member of the family.
So, they really have this idea of another country where life is different, where they can go to school,
where they can fulfil their dreams, and also later on help others who stayed home.
And – you know – it is very difficult to hear children crying when they are talking with their mothers on the phone and missing them a lot, and being afraid along the journey.
But, in the same time, they are so courageous and so determined and they are telling us that they cannot give up.
My house was burned down, including the cars. I do not know who did that.
After that, I spoked with a friend from work of my dad. I told him that I have nothing left to do here.
I cannot fix my leg, I cannot go to schools, no life… nothing.
I only had a couple of relatives.
He asked me if I want him to help me leave the country and I answered “yes, certainly”.
We are in Refugee Aid Miksaliste.
This is a hub for various organisations, which are providing support and help to the refugees and migrants who are arriving in Belgrade.
UNHCR reports about 200 to 300 people who are arriving daily and they are actually wishing to continue the journey to the Western European countries.
The problem is that the only real way to leave Serbia is to ask asylum in Hungary and Hungary admits only 30 people per day.
So, if you compare these numbers, 30 people who are able to leave the country per day, and 200 or 300 of them arriving in Serbia,
then you can count the numbers and actually figure out why we have over six thousand people present in Serbia at the moment.
We say that they are temporarily stuck or stranded. Temporarily because they are all planning to leave Serbia.
Serbia is not their country of destination. They are relying on smugglers to help the to cross.
They are paying large sums of money to them and very often they are abused by the smugglers.
I spent about 21.000 euro on the way. I gave it to the smugglers to bring me and my two brothers -
everyone, 21.000 euro to arrive here, in a EU country.
It’s very difficult.
I gave a lot of money to these people just to bring me in a very safe place, because my brother had a medical condition
His condition was not good for walking. But unfortunately, they used us, they just brought us as they wanted.
I begged for all of us to come by car to the EU. They promised us, but they didn’t (give what they promised).
After a week, I was teaching the kids in the camp, I was travelling with some groups just to give support to other refugees, in other camps - you know -
outside Sofia and even in Sofia, and that’s how I met her in one of the camps (his wife).
Even right now, my boss at the company, the owner of the company, is one of the supporters of the refugees.
I met him in one camp, outside of Sofia.
(Reporter) He was also a volunteer?
Yes. After that, after a couple of months, he started to contact me: “Hey, Elias
Let’s… We’re developing programmes (IT), you can help us.”
(Reporter) He is an IT entrepreneur?
Yes, and right now I’m working for his company.
My class mates help me a lot with my homework on our WhatsApp and Messenger group.
They help me with my homework.
They know that I cannot do them correctly on my own and they help me through the class group.
When I had my surgery, it was very hard until I got the money.
I had an allowance from Bucharest and JRS.
My class mates helped me as well with money to have my operation.
This is where we welcome children and their families
This is where we welcome children andand where we involve them in various activities with the goal of helping them to relax, to feel safe, to feel at home,
and to somehow provide the environment where children can be what they really are: children
They did not have much chance to feel like children during this perilous journey.
This is one of the activities that the team in the Child Friendly Space created. It’s called ”Superhero on the way”.
It’s one big map, with many Superheroes, and the children who come to the Child Friendly Space, they all get this small Superhero and then they can paint it and they can actually personalize it.
While doing this, they are telling us their stories about the journey,
about the super-powers that they have and helped them along this journey.
This is how, by telling their stories, they are digesting all these difficult experiences that they had
and they are also focusing on their strengths, which is very important.
When they finish, they can put their Superhero on the map, together with all the other Superheroes and children really love this activity.
A friend of mine - among the volunteers I met a professor from the university - invited me once to go there and to have contact with the students there.
They offered me to work with them at the University, as I am native, so…
(Reporter) Do you mean to teach them?
Yes, I am a lecturer in Arabic languages. They knew that I had a good experience in teaching.
I thought in Cuba, in the University of Havana, for four years. I like to be a professor, actually.
It’s more than IT, than an outsourcing company or this kind of job.
But here, working in these companies, you get better chances because they offer better money.
And the University… Actually, I’m doing it like a volunteer, because they are not giving good money there.
At least, I’m doing this for Bulgarians - not for the government – the people who helped at the beginning.
(Reporter) The average Bulgarian, the normal Bulgarian, the citizens on their own, not the state.
I told you. I don’t want to blame the government, because the situation in the camps is better now than at the beginning.
When we came in the first wave, we were 10.000.
It was a big number for a small country like Bulgaria, a poor country.
We left everything in Syria. My husband had a factory, a medical cabinet.
We believe that if Syria will become peaceful again, we will surely return there. In Syria, in our country, people are peaceful.
It is very strange what happened there.
Education, afterwards you can do anything you want.
Many of the Serbian people know how it is to be displaced, how you feel when you have to leave your home.
They have experienced conflicts and the civil war.
So, they can feel for these people.
Both the Asylum Info Centre and Miksalište (Refugee Aid Centre) are calling for help.
People are bringing their clothes, so these can be distributed to the refugees.
The average Serbian citizen would support and help the refugees.
This is what we have been seeing in this transit context.
And we are hoping that this will also be the case if these people will stay for a longer period,
or if we will have a number of them who are going to stay as asylum seekers and who will be integrated into society.
Since then, I remained here. I saw that this is a beautiful country.
The people are kind. Here, I am fine.
I don`t want to go to a richer or more beautiful country. I am not interested in that.
All I was interested was to fix my leg problems and to start school again.
I lost three, four years of school.
This is his test after the year in which he was an audient.
Based on this test, he could be admitted in the IXth grade.
Let me talk about the amount of money that they are giving us - about 450 RON [per month]. It’s about 100 euro.
It’s difficult to manage your daily life with this money. For one month… It’s a bit difficult.
You have to work here, to earn money, to save money… You have to work.
At the end of the month, we run out of money.
For me… I do not want to go out, I do not want to leave Romania.
I do not know if other people agree with this, but for me it is ok to stay in Romania.
I started to learn Romanian and I like the people here, the Romanian people,
they are great people. So, I want to stay in Romania.
If I would have wanted to leave Romania, I would have left three of four months ago.
I want to build my life in Romania.
One of the reasons for which I stayed here is that I saw that there were opportunities to stay and to get a good job.
Other refugees, they don’t even know that there are opportunities here.
I think that work - to get a good job - is the easiest way to integrate in any society.
(Reporter) Do you speak Bulgarian now?
(Laughing) Actually, no. This is… Shame on me.
I don’t feel like it’s my country, like I felt when I was in Cuba.
I feel like I am more Cuban. Part of me is Cuban, part of me is Syrian.
(Reporter) Not a Bulgarian yet?
Not a Bulgarian yet.
It’s like I am the same person, I am the same guy, but when I speak in Arabic, they feel like “hmm, these Arab guys”.
But if I speak in Spanish, they start laughing with me, something like “OK, you are welcomed here…”.
(Reporter) How can you explain this?
It is the propaganda that some media are doing. Not only here, in Bulgaria, I think that in many countries there is a malicious propaganda.
They want to show the refugees as being evil, bad people that must not come to Europe.
We do have some concerns, when it comes to media reports, because we have seen cases of sensational reporting, but this is still not a serious concern.
There were reports about criminal activities, criminal acts, assaults by smugglers, refugees, and migrants.
The Serbian police has been dealing with this.
These reports caused concerns in the local communities where these cases happened,
but things are still under control and there are no serious concerns at the moment.
What we are concerned about is that the people who are staying in Serbia are more and more desperate
and we can see that many of them are depressed and they feel like there is no future for them,
they don’t know what will happen tomorrow.
I cannot say that Romania is featuring high levels of hate speech. But if I say it doesn’t exist at all, I would not be telling the truth.
Of course, there are instances of... I wouldn’t call it hate speech. It is more mistrust.
But I think that these instances of mistrust have been provoked by what I call the breaking news effect - the breaking news effect
of things that were not happening in Romania, but were happening elsewhere.
No doubt, the horrible events, what happened in Paris, Brussels and more recently in Berlin, during Christmas…
All of this is showed on TV and… I`m sorry to say… I don’t want to blame journalists.
Journalists do an excellent work in feeding the public opinion with information, but sometimes the language used is very inaccurate.
They tend to call “refugees” people who are not refugees, who are other things, but not refugees.
They can be foreigners residing legally, but they are not necessarily refugees.
But there is this tendency to call everybody a refugee.
He still has the power to smile. He is sociable and has integrated with ease among its colleagues.
And I also think that he is strong, because he has the strength to smile after the tragedy that he experienced.
I do not want to forget JRS who have supported us and gave us everything. They are great people.
I want to find a better job, or stay at this job. That`s it.
When I got my refugee status, all my friends came and said that they are happy for me.
They congratulated me and said I have to invite them over to celebrate.
So, I made them a traditional meal from Afghanistan.
If you don’t mind, I have some pictures. Let me to show you. Here… it’s rice, plus meat, plus carrots.
I also enjoyed staying with my family, in my country, with people that speak my language.
But this is it.
When I reached Romania, I started to look at this country as I looked at Iraq.
Romania is my country now.
I got my surgery and I learned the language.
Now, this is my country. Iraq used to be my country.
I also submitted my CV to different organizations - CNRR (The Romanian National Council for Refugees), JRS (Jesuit Refugee Service), as well as IOM (International Organization for Migration) -
to find a job where I can improve my education, my experience.
I didn’t receive any feedback from them.
They think that the problem to find a job here is that: “You do not speak Romanian.”
Today, I received a call from IOM.
They said that if I want to find a job, I have to use an online job search platform.
Before working in Romania, I worked in Central Asia, in Kazakhstan,
and I had once a young refugee from Afghanistan who came to me to talk about his problems and he had a long list of complaints.
He said that and that and I said
“OK, you have a really long list, but if you had to choose one thing in which you think I can or UNHCR can help you, what will you choose?”
And he told me something I will never forget, because he said... He was thinking and he said: “You know - what I want is to become a tax payer.”
And I said “A tax payer? Why would you want that? Nobody wants to pay taxes.”
And he said: “If I have to pay taxes, it would mean that I have a salary,
and if I have a salary it means I have a job and I can sustain my family and I wouldn’t have to come to complain to you.”
And then I thought it reflected very well what refugees want -
a normal life – even to become tax payers, which is something nobody likes,
but paying taxes is a sign of normality.
At this moment, we have a 3-day old baby with her mother in the corner (the mother & baby corner of the Asylum Info Centre).
The baby was born in Belgrade. This is a family from Iraq. They have been travelling for a long time and the woman was pregnant during the journey.
She gave birth in a hospital and her family was here, with the team.
When they learned that she successfully gave birth, and that the mother and baby were both feeling well, the family celebrated, dancing and singing.