Among the hundreds of thousands making the perilous journey by rickety boats from the coast of Turkey and north Africa to Greece are Afghans who are willing to put their lives at risk for the prospect of a better future.
By August this year, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said the number of refugees and migrants crossing the Mediterranean to reach Europe had passed 300,000, up from 219,000 in 2014. Only days before, a baby was among 71 refugees who were found dead in an abandoned freezer truck on the Austria border and Libyan officials recovered the bodies of 82 migrants who drowned when their boat sank on its way to Europe. There were around 400 people, most of them in the hold of the doomed boat. The bodies of 100 people were listed as “missing at sea”.
There are Syrians, Afghans, Pakistanis and migrants from countries in north Africa and sub-Saharan Africa trying to enter Europe. There are professionals of all kinds including doctors, teachers and media professionals.
Naseer Ahmad Sekendari was a cameraman with Yak TV channel. Anxious about a Taleban takeover of the country, Sekendari quit his job and left the country with his wife and two children. They reached Turkey, and then there was no news. Family members and friends were shocked to identify his body in a photograph of a drowned migrant that was circulating on social media.
Mirwais Aria, his colleague, hopes against hope that the man in the picture is not Sekendari. He told Killid he hopes his friend is alive and in a hospital in Turkey.
Human smugglers
Sekendari’s is not an unusual story. Tens of thousands of Afghans have put themselves in the hands of dishonest agents who have promised to help them reach Europe, Australia and destinations in North America only to find they have been left stranded or worse. An Iraqi surgeon, who survived the boat tragedy off the coast of Libya told Reuters that he paid 3,000 Euros to come up on the deck of the boat together with his wife and two-year-old child.
According to the International Organisation for Migration’s (IOM) count 612,605 migrants had arrived in Greece alone by sea this year. The figure for the number of deaths on Nov 3 was 477 in Greece and 3,406 across the world.
In the worst-ever refugee crisis facing Europe since the Second World War, tens of thousands are “regime-change” refugees. Smuggling networks are making a killing as Syrians and Libyans flee war and sectarian violence unleashed by “regime change” policies in their countries. Newspapers are reporting that migrants are taking the “Arctic route”, crossing from the Russian border into Norway by cycle – pedestrian traffic is banned and drivers are fined heavily if found giving passengers without valid visas a lift across the border – and avoiding the Mediterranean Sea crossing into Europe. Norway is not a member of the European Union.
Unfinished journey
Ahmad Haidari, 30, has taken four years to get to Germany from Panjsher. His dream is to enter Sweden but he has no idea if that will ever be possible. A graduate of Habibia High School in Kabul, he worked with the international troops in Afghanistan before leaving the country in 2009 when he was threatened by the opponents of the government. His first stop was Dubai from where he went to Kazakhstan and onwards to Russia, then making his way slowly to the West through Ukraine and Hungary to Austria and finally to Germany.
Ahmad says the Ukraine police jailed him for six months. “I was released but I stayed there to earn money because the human smugglers in Ukraine had abandoned me after taking all my money. I put together 7,000 USD before continuing on my way,” he says. Ahmad who says he has been in Germany for “two years and seven months” was arrested by the German police on his arrival. Fluent in three foreign languages – English from Afghanistan, Russian during his journey and German since his arrival in the country – he is hoping, like thousands of others like him, that his papers will be processed and he will not be deported.
The Afghan government has been silent on the deportations of its citizens who have risked everything, including their lives, to reach Europe and countries in other affluent parts of the world.
“I lost my job, house and friends in Afghanistan and President (Ashraf) Ghani has decided to return me,” he spoke from Germany in a phone interview. He says he cannot return because the government cannot guarantee his security and “I have to start everything from zero”.
The government of Afghanistan has to tackle widespread joblessness, which together with the violence and uncertainty in many parts, is driving tens of thousands of people, particularly a frustrated generation of youth out of the country. The government has to provide people with hope in the future.
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