Migrant crisis: A weary family finally reach sanctuary

Jamil and his family arrived in Munich at night, jaded in body and confused in spirit.

“We had mixed feelings,” he says. “We could not believe we reached our destination. We had been on our way for two months.

"We celebrated when we reached Turkey from Syria and Greece from Turkey. But when we reached Germany we were happy but not really happy. We understood we were entering another stage in our lives. We celebrated but it was not a pure celebration."

Jamil (32), his mother Laila (51), and sisters Lora (27) and Carla (21), spent two months travellingtravelled by land and sea from Damascus to Bavaria – negotiating sinkings and smugglers, fear and exhaustion. They slept the night in Munich and were collected the next morning by a driver in a minivan with Bulgarian number plates and proceeded towards Berlin.

“He was a regular guy,” said Jamil (32). The family had freed themselves from the grip of smugglers but the minivan they hired had plates from a country known for smuggling networks.

Near Nuremberg a police car directed them to the side of the road, the patrolman checked their papers and led them to a station where they were finger-printed and sent on to Zirndorf to have chest X-rays and blood tests.

From there they were taken by the authorities to a reception centre at Fürth. The family was assigned a cubicle enclosed with blankets in a large exhibition hall already hosting Albanians, Kosovars, Serbians, Ukrainians, some Syrians and Palestinians from home ground in the UN-run camp in the Yarmouk district of Damascus.

Nuremberg flat

After 15 days, the family was taken to a Nuremberg flat shared with two other families, one from

Serbia

and the other from

Ukraine

. Each family of four had a room with three beds. Communication with the Serbs was possible because the boys understood a little English, but not with the Ukrainians, who knew none.

After six days, Jamil’s family was moved to the apartment they now occupy. “It was a big relief to be private, in our own flat,” he says. Their neighbours are Ukrainians, Russians, Azeris and a Syrian who is in Turkey trying to bring his family to Germany. Communication is limited to friendly nods and hellos.

I had not seen Jamil since the spring of 2014 in Damascus and found him thinner, the bones of his face prominent, when he met me at the railway station in a small town.

We took a taxi to his family’s new home in a classy “dorp” or hamlet with handsome houses painted in pastel pink, green and yellow and set in flower gardens.

We slipped off our shoes when we entered the flat, as is the custom in Arab – and many German – homes. From a small shelf in the dining room hung the snakelike tube of a “shisha” (waterpipe) mended with scotch tape. The glass bowl and apparatus stood by the dining table. I settled into one of the two bedrooms.

In proud possession of German refugee passports allowing them to travel within the European Union without visas, Leila and Lora had gone to the Netherlands to visit relatives whom they had not seen for years. Syrian refugee documents get them nowhere.

Carla had cooked a dish of macaroni-cheese layered with meat and prepared spiced plates of hummus, for a taste of home. “You know, Carla and my mother cooked when [the al-Qaeda linked Jabhat] al-Nusra and the Free Army took over Yarmouk from the Palestinian defenders [December 16th, 2012]. There was celebratory shooting but they fried potatoes.” The next day Leila and Carla walked out of Yarmouk in a vast stream of humanity fleeing the war.

“Lora and I found them by accident on the way and took them to a hotel at St Thomas Gate [in the Old City],” says Jamil. “My father [Ahmad] stayed for another two months.” After he left, their house was looted and destroyed. Possessions they rescued are now in Germany, sent on in huge suitcases via Beirut by Ahmad, who plans to apply for family reunion.

Jamil received his German refugee passport a week ago – his German is fluent; his scholarship awarded for a British university has followed him to Germany and he will begin a master’s course in Berlin next month. His mother and sisters will sit the first German exam next week and begin the integration course. Lora, a Damascus-trained architect, has been offered a job at an architect’s office.

The war

Having lost three years at university due to the war, Carla is looking for a course in economics. They plan to follow Jamil to Berlin once he finds accommodation. “The university has offered me a buddy to help me settle in,” he said proudly.

Europe is a truly foreign land for Leila, who did not want to leave Syria and is likely to find adjusting to a new life difficult. People she meets in the street make her feel uncomfortable over the headscarf she wears.

Her roots are deep in Damascus but she uprooted herself, faced death, injury and trauma on the journey from Syria to Germany to give her children security and a future.

Over the past few months, Jamil has volunteered as an Arabic-German translator at a refugee centre located at a school gymnasium in the nearby town.

When we visited, there were several Syrian couples with small children as well as Palestinians from the violent Ain al-Hilweh camp in Lebanon.

They were set to move to flats on the weekend and 100 Syrian and Iraqi men were due to arrive. Camp beds had been set up for them.

Refugees come and go.