132 | July• 2019
police with helmets and riot shields.
Behind me people were shouting
“Germany. Germany!” and demand-
ing they reopen the border. Someone
from Hungarian TV pushed a camera
in my face. “If you had Angela Merkel
here, what would you say to her?”
“Help us,” I replied.
I didn’t want to say more. I hated
the way my wheelchair was being
used to try and make Hungarian sol-
diers feel sorry for me. “I want to get
out of here,” I told Nasrine.
I KNOW I AM LUCKY
Nasrine wheeled me to the main
road, which was crowded with refu-
gees. We watched as a column of ar-
moured vehicles arrived on the Hun-
garian side. Hundreds of riot police
emerged and turned
water cannons on the
protesters.
I think the local
people felt bad for
us. Volunteers were
passing out all sorts
of food. There were
also lots of journal-
ists at the scene.
“Hey, there’s a Syrian
girl in a wheelchair
who speaks English,”
I heard one person
shout. All of a sud-
den, they descended
on me. An American
woman from ABC
wanted to know how I knew English.
I explained I learned from watching
Days of Our Lives. A man from the
BBC laughed when I told him I want-
ed to be an astronaut and go into
space and also go to London to meet
the queen.
By then we had lost hope of Hun-
gary opening its doors, and someone
said the Croatians were welcoming
refugees. So we could try going that
way, and from there to Slovenia.
So Nasrine pushed me back
through fields of dead sunf lowers,
and we got a taxi back the way we had
come then west towards Croatia. It
felt like we were in one of those com-
puter games where they keep cutting
off routes and you have to find anoth-
er one. PHOTO: GORDON WELTERS/UNHCRNujeen received asylum in Germany in 2016. Now
aged 20 and living near Cologne, she goes to school