GENOA (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 02nd March, 2020) Salih (not his real name), in his twenties, is a Syrian refugee who lives in Italy, Genoa. He is a shy guy with kind eyes who grew in a good family in Damascus and studied tourism at the university. However, he knew that after graduation there was no place for him in war-struck Syria, and decided to leave the country. He made the sea route from Turkey to Lesbos, and it was a mere row of coincidences and human compassion that helped him to find himself where he is now since he reached the Greek island just one day after Ankara and the European Union signed a deal in 2016, under which migrants must have been returned to Turkey in exchange for billions of Dollars in EU aid.
On Friday, Omer Celik, a spokesman for Turkey's ruling AKP party, said that Ankara was no longer able to abide by the 2016 migration deal EU and restrain the flow of refugees from Syria.
Following his statement, Turkey's neighbor states announced increased control at the borders. Media reported that hundreds of migrants started arriving at the borders with Greece and Bulgaria.
Sputnik spoke to Salih to learn first-hand what a perilous journey in a small rubber boat from Turkey to Greece looks like �a journey which is now likely to be repeated by many of his 3.6 million compatriots who live as refugees in Turkey.
Salih left Syria at the end of 2015. He had finished his studies in Damascus by that time and was supposed to start obligatory two-year military service, but knowing from the example of his friends that in wartime the length of service was indefinite, he started planning an escape.
"I heard that there are many Syrians who manage to escape to Europe. So I thought that I can try. By that time, I had already seen 4 years of war, I saw everything, and I realized it was no longer possible to remain in the country, to work or to continue some kind of normal life," Salih said.
He first went to Lebanon by bus, which took just several hours, and then had a flight to Istanbul. He had all the necessary documents, even though it was "a bit difficult" to make a passport for travel.
"I stayed in Turkey for almost 3 months. I tried to work, but it was so hard to find something. There are many Syrians who work in Turkey, but they earn just enough to buy some food. It is never some fixed work, always something occasional, sporadic. So when you work like this, 'cash-in-hand,' they can easily not pay you. And I have never seen Turkish authorities help any Syrians. So we worked with other Syrians at a tissue [??] factory. Actually, it was a Syrian factory that moved from Aleppo when the war started. They moved their production to Turkey," Salih said.
After two months he realized life in Turkey was even harder than in Syria. He did not have enough money and lived together with other Syrian refugees in one big room in a dormitory, or so-called youth house, owned by a wealthy Syrian migrant in Turkey.
"It's just a big dorm where you can rent one bed. Actually, it costs really a lot. It's 200 US dollars per month just to have a bed. It's a pity that Syrians do this to other Syrians," Salih recalled.
He spent a month planning his escape from Turkey.
"I knew the only way for me was by a rubber boat, by sea to Europe. I knew it was very dangerous, but I decided to do so since my life there was no longer tolerable."
In Turkey, refugees who want to reach Europe find smugglers that bring groups to the Greek islands by word of mouth. Salih described these dealers as a "real mafia" that always has a Turkish man as its boss.
"In Istanbul, there were people going around who every day were saying that they collect some group of Syrians to go away by boat. Actually, these people are also Syrians. They are real mafia, but their head is always a Turk. But he never shows up. You always communicate only with these Syrian traffickers. It was not difficult to find one such man, I just went to the main square in Istanbul and asked a bit around," Salih said.
Smugglers collect passengers for a boat (the price for a ticket depends on the type of the vessel � is it a dinghy or a jet ski � and on the sailing skills of a smuggler) and communicate by WhatsApp.
"They always tell you lies, they say that in 10 minutes you will already reach Greece. I paid to the smuggler 600 US dollars for a place in a rubber boat. It was not a big sum, but I didn't have more. Others paid 2,000 or 3,000 for a better boat, for a jet ski. Different smugglers also have different prices. Because some are considered to be more 'skilled and safe,' others less," Salih said.
When his group was gathered, Salih and others had to move from Istanbul to Izmir, from where it was possible to depart. There were around 50 persons for one dinghy. They went to Izmir all together by bus at night. It was early 2016 and at that moment news started coming out that Europe wants to close the borders and to make a deal with Turkey to prevent refugees from arriving. Turkey started to increase border controls.
"In Izmir, we stayed together in a small hostel one day, and next night Turkish police arrived and conducted a sweep. They knew that we wanted to escape to Europe because all Syrians who come to that place want it. So the police took us all for one night, and then they made us write a paper stating that we do not want to go out of Turkey and that we want to come back to Istanbul. So we wrote those papers. When we went out of that place, we tried to find the smuggler who took our money, but we didn't find him. So we lost all our money," Salih said.
Most of the people from the group went back to Istanbul, but Salih and several of his friends stayed in Izmir. They spent one week like beggars on roads. His friends were making calls trying to find some relatives or friends who could lend them money. He, however, had no one to call, because he never told his parents that he left Istanbul and planned to go to Europe.
"This one week was harder than all the previous ones in Turkey. It was then when I decided finally that I wanted to take the risk despite all my fears and to cross the sea on a boat and reach Europe. In the end, one friend found a relative who borrowed money for all of us. This friend paid for me 700 dollars for the second attempt, for a place in a rubber boat. It was a new group of around 50 persons," Salih said.
The new smuggler was considered to be pretty reliable and well-skilled. Once the conditions on the sea were favorable, he brought his group by a mini-van at night to a remote hidden beach where no one could see them. The beach was located near the mountains, so even from helicopters, it was hard to spot the place.
"The boat was in water some 30 meters [100 feet] away from the beach. It was so dark at night that we could hardly see it. When I saw it, I couldn't believe how small it was. It was just several meters long, I couldn't understand how 50 persons could fit in it. When I saw it, I started panicking and saying I wouldn't go. But my friend persuaded me. Also, I saw women with children (one child was even in a wheelchair) running into the water to reach the boat, and then I went there myself," Salih said.
"All women and children sat in the center of the boat. Men were sitting on the edge of the boat so that we were feeling water with our backs. You make one movement backwards and can easily fall in the water. We had only small backpacks, almost nothing with us, and we had sea vests with us that we bought ourselves. Obviously, smugglers do not provide anything," he continued.
The water was very cold as it was March. The smuggler told the Syrians the trip would take a maximum of 30 minutes. The boat was going very slowly and dancing a lot. Luckily, the sea was pretty still.
"The man did not allow us to use phones and GPS to see where we were because lights from the screens could have been seen from helicopters. At first, no one was speaking, then everybody started praying. They all were Muslims. I am Christian, though I am Syrian. So I didn't pray aloud. After some time, men started making some jokes, singing, so that fear go away," Salih said.
Instead of the promised 30 minutes, it took them four hours and a half to reach Lesbos.
"We were seeing lights of the island, and every time we thought with heart aflutter that we arrived. Instead, we were always mistaken. Those were long long hours," Salih added.
The group arrived on March 19. On the previous day, the European Council and Turkey reached an agreement aimed at stopping the flow of irregular migration via Turkey to Europe. In order "to break the business model of smugglers and to offer migrants an alternative to putting their lives at risk," as the text of the deal reads, the EU and Turkey decided that all new irregular migrants crossing from Turkey to the Greek islands as of March 20, 2016, would be returned to Turkey.
In return, the EU promised substantial financial aid for Turkey to maintain refugee facilities.
"When we approached Lesbos, the Greek coastal guard noticed us, approached our boat and said we must turn and go away because the EU was closing the border. We got so scared, it was impossible to go back after all this way, we didn't even have diesel left. Then women who had children started raising their children in arms so that people on the island could see, and shouting 'We have children!' That was the only phrase they knew in English. In the end, the coast guard took us on their vessel, because it is not allowed to approach the land in your own boat, and they brought us to the island," Salih said.
"Once we felt land under our feet, we immediately forgot all the hardships of the journey. We were so happy, hugging each other. We threw the sea vests on top of the huge yellow pile of the vests of all other migrants who had arrived on the island before us," he continued.
The newly arrived were brought to the Lesbos refugee camp. They had to sleep in white UN tents, right on the ground, though it was still very cold. The camp was badly overcrowded. Salih recalls people of different nationalities � Africans, Afghans, Syrians � were often fighting with each other for food. All residents had to make an interview with a UN worker via a translator, telling them about themselves, their families, their work skills and their relatives abroad, if there were any. After such interviews, everyone had to wait until some country agreed to take a certain number of refugees under the EU redistribution scheme. However, such news was coming slowly and rarely, and camp residents were just trapped in a long wait.
"Nobody knew when he would be able to leave the camp, we knew nothing. The territory of the camp was surrounded by the fence, we were not allowed to leave it. When the number of migrants staying in the camp reached 5,000, we were not able to take shower or eat, we had to wait for two hours to get a plate of something," Salih said.
"After a month since I came there, a journalist who arrived in the camp with a charity organization approached me and told me they were looking for Christians among the residents of the camp. At first, I was the only Christian there, then I found another one. She told me that Papa Francesco [Pope Francis] wanted to visit the camp. I obviously did not believe it," he continued.
Pope Francis visited Lesbos on April 16, 2016. He spent five hours on Lesbos with a spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Christians and the archbishop of Athens and Greece. He met refugees and held a service to bless those who had died trying to cross the sea. He also took on his plane 10 refugees and brought them to Rome, offering them refuge.
"Those who arrived after us, after March 19, had to go back to Turkey because of the EU decision. ... Some days after the journalist approached me, I heard that Papa came indeed and that an Italian Christian community, Sant'Egidio, arrived with him. They said they wanted to take back with them to Italy 10 persons. I approached them and brought also another guy whom I found to be Christian, and his sister, and seven other Syrians who came with me on March 19. Then Papa came, he spoke to us with a translator, and when we were just about to board the plane, they revealed that something was wrong with our documents. The fact that we all arrived on March 19, a day after the EU introduced that ban, created some obstacles. So, they did not take us, they picked another group and took them," Salih said.
"It was such a disappointment, in one day we embraced hope and lost it. We felt so bad. But just before leaving, one man from Sant'Egidio approached me, seeing my face, and promised they would come back for us. Of course, I did not believe," he continued.
Sant'Egidio is an international Christian association represented in over 70 countries and based in Rome, engaged in peace initiatives and dedicated to social service.
"After they left, my Christian friend and his sister tried to escape illegally. It was a well-established scheme, but very expensive. They bought identity cards from Romanians for 3,000 dollars each. These are real IDs, of real people, when you want to buy it, they find one with a photo of a person who more or less looks like you. Then they just go to their authorities and say they lost their ID or something like that. It's not fake, it's real. There are many people there in Lesbos who engage in this illegal business. So, my friends left. The guy them was stopped in Athens, but his sister actually managed to reach Germany with this ID and to settle there," Salih said.
"I remained in the camp. This was a very sad period for me, I did not know what I was waiting for. After some weeks, however, Sant'Egidio came back indeed. I could not believe it. They came to take us back. They approached me and asked where my friend was because they wanted to take all of those people whom they couldn't take last time. He was in Athens, but they told me to find him. So we went to Athens together with the people of Sant'Egidio to find him. Thus we gathered the same group that was supposed to leave when Sant'Egidio came for the first time (only the sister of my friend couldn't be found, because she was in Germany, so they took somebody else). And then Sant'Egidio brought us by plane to Italy," he continued.
Two months after the arrival in Rome, during which all the saved refugees lived in a social center that belongs to Sant'Egidio, Pope Francis had lunch together with 20 former camp residents in the Vatican.
Salih finally called his parents and told them he was in Rome, safe and hopeful for a new life.
"I started thinking where to go in Italy. I chose Genoa because it has a big center of Sant'Egidio as well. So I moved to Genoa and now live in the center of the Community for free � they gave me the room, and I work in the church here and help Sant'Egidio," Salih said.
He also learned Italian pretty well at free language courses that the community provides.
"I realized I want to be a hairdresser, so I attend a barber school here and will have my final exams soon. In my family, my grandfather was a barber and my mother used to be a hairdresser, so I think I can do it. I like Italy, and Genoa in particular, very much. People here are very open and friendly, you do not feel excluded, there is no xenophobia here like, for example, in Germany as I hear from the stories of my friends living there. Now I am thinking how to bring my parents here," he said.
Having shared with Sputnik his story, Salih smiled and asked: "I didn't say anything special, did I?" Nevertheless, he asked his name to be changed.
