Sarah
Hendes mor, Manal er også portrætteret i denne udstilling.
My name is Sara, I am 18 years old. I come from Damascus, Syria. I wish to talk about the accident that happened on my trip from Syria to Denmark.
10 months ago, I fled from Syria with my father, brother and sister to join my mother in Denmark. The soldiers threatened to kill me and my family, if I did not bring my mother back to Syria. My mother had fled before us, because she had worked for the ministry of justice, and when she refused to give information to a Syrian Islamic rebel group, they threatened her life.
When we left Syria, went to Lebanon, in the back of a big van. After that I went to Turkey. After that, I spent a little time there with my father, my sister and my brother.
In Turkey, a man asked us if we wanted to go to Greece. He said “you can come today, and go by rubber boat”. We said yes, and he have us the time and place to meet him. In the middle of the night, when we arrived at the place, I got a chok, because there were a lot of people in the boat. Too many. But the man said “it’s was not a problem. If you don’t come with us, I will kill you, because you will go to the police and tell them about this”. He wanted to kill us on the beach. So we all went on the boat. At 4 or 5 o’clock in the morning, I’m not sure. When we got to the middle of the sea, I didn’t know what happened, because the captain of the boat broke the motor. The boat started to sink.
I knew it was a was situation when it happened, because the two babies on the boat drowned in the water. The water was too cold for the babies, and also for us. The mothers were crying out, the men were shouting. Also the babies and the children were shouting and crying. I don’t know what happened exactly. I can’t remember. Some people went into chok. Nobody knew what happened, or what we shall do, what we can do. After two or two and a half hours, a fisherman came and saved us. He took us from the Mediterranean sea, back to Turkey. The government put us in prison for 8 days, without food, without water. It was very dirty. It was a bad situation. It was an asylum place, but it was not good to living in. It was like a prison. Very dirty!
After that, the government let us go. We tried to go in a rubber boat again, and we arrived in Greece. I was very afraid, but I don’t have choice. When we got to Greece I was so happy. So, so happy, because it was so dangerous. Nobody could help us if we drowned.
The Danish Red Cross helped us to transfer to another place. I want somebody – I hope somebody – from here or from Red Cross, helps the children! Because the children everyday crying, crying, crying. Every day die. This is my story.