CROSSING TO EUROPE
122 | July• 2019
From the beachwe could see the island of
Lesbos – and Europe. The sea was quiet, flecked only by the
smallest of whitecaps that looked as if they were dancing on the
waves. The island did not look far off. But our grey dinghies were
small and sat low in the water, weighed down with as many lives
as could be packed into the small boats.
minibus. From there we’d walked
down the hill to the shore, about a
kilometre. That’s not much, but feels
like a very long way in a wheelchair
with only your sister to push and a
fierce Turkish sun beating down and
driving sweat into your eyes.
The smugglers had promised we
would leave early in the morning. By
dawn we were ready on the shore in
our life jackets. Our mobile phones
were tied inside party balloons to pro-
tect them on the crossing, a trick we
had been shown how to do in Izmir.
There were several other groups
waiting. We’d paid $1500 each, instead
of the usual $1000, to have a dinghy
just for our family, but it seemed
others would be in our boat anyway.
There would be 38 people in total.
There was nothing we could do about
it. We couldn’t go back, and people
said the smugglers used knives and
cattle prods on people who changed
their minds.
On the beach there were people
from Syria, like us, as well as from Iraq,
Morocco and Afghanistan. Some peo-
ple swapped stories, but most didn’t
say much. Many spoke in a language PHOTO, PREVIOUS SPREAD: STR/AFP/GETTY IMAGESWe had heard that on a fine sum-
mer day like this, with a working
motor, a dinghy takes just over an
hour to cross the 12-kilometre strait.
However, the motors were often old,
and they strained for power with all
the people in the boats.
The beach was not sandy, as I had
imagined, but pebbly, yet we could
see that we were in the right place
from the discarded belongings scat-
tered along the shore. There were
clothes and shoes and backpacks, all
tossed out because there was no room
in the boats and people had to travel
as light as possible.
It was the first time I had seen
the sea. The first time I had ridden
in a bus, flown in a plane, travelled
out of my country. The first time for
everything. Back in Aleppo, Syria,
I had barely ever left our fifth-floor
apartment. I was born with a type of
cerebral palsy, and mostly confined to
a wheelchair, and so it was up to my
sister Nasrine to navigate our way to
safety.
We had been in the olive groves
all night, after having been dropped
off on the cliff road by a smuggler’s