Reading human interest stories and realizing what people had to go through should make us all feel grateful that we don't have to go through what these people do.
Our only option was to flee Libya by sea: a refugee's story
Hasan's four daughters who went missing when the boat they were on sank on 11 October 2013 © Private
Syrian doctor Hasan Wahid survived a shipwreck in the Mediterranean on 11 October 2013 - the second of two shipwrecks near Lampedusa where over 500 people drowned. He told us his family's story of the impossible choices – and terrible dangers – they faced trying to reach a safe haven from the war in Syria.
I received a direct threat saying that if I don’t leave Libya I’ll regret staying. I was accused of supporting the [Assad] regime and beaten up. I'd received death threats. I had to leave.
I tried to go to Egypt, but they closed their borders to Syrians. I applied for a visa to Tunisia, but it was turned down. I applied for a visa to Malta, but that was also rejected. So at that stage, my only option was the sea.
We were told [by the smugglers, who wanted $4,500 to take Hasan's family] it would be a passenger ship. When we saw it was a fishing trawler, it was too late to turn back. My family sat far from me. I had to sit at the back with the elderly and the physically impaired because I have a childhood handicap in my left foot. My wife and four daughters - Randa, aged 10, Sherihan, eight, Nurhan, six, and Kristina, two - sat at the front, on the same level of the boat. The 450-500 people on board were mostly Syrians.
Continue reading at:
Our only option was to flee Libya by sea a refugee s story Blogs Amnesty International UK?
Our only option was to flee Libya by sea: a refugee's story
Syrian doctor Hasan Wahid survived a shipwreck in the Mediterranean on 11 October 2013 - the second of two shipwrecks near Lampedusa where over 500 people drowned. He told us his family's story of the impossible choices – and terrible dangers – they faced trying to reach a safe haven from the war in Syria.
I received a direct threat saying that if I don’t leave Libya I’ll regret staying. I was accused of supporting the [Assad] regime and beaten up. I'd received death threats. I had to leave.
I tried to go to Egypt, but they closed their borders to Syrians. I applied for a visa to Tunisia, but it was turned down. I applied for a visa to Malta, but that was also rejected. So at that stage, my only option was the sea.
We were told [by the smugglers, who wanted $4,500 to take Hasan's family] it would be a passenger ship. When we saw it was a fishing trawler, it was too late to turn back. My family sat far from me. I had to sit at the back with the elderly and the physically impaired because I have a childhood handicap in my left foot. My wife and four daughters - Randa, aged 10, Sherihan, eight, Nurhan, six, and Kristina, two - sat at the front, on the same level of the boat. The 450-500 people on board were mostly Syrians.
Continue reading at:
Our only option was to flee Libya by sea a refugee s story Blogs Amnesty International UK?
