^{Tuesday 16th May 2017}

Kawa Selo

34 years old.

He came to Veria Camp with his wife and 3 children, all girls.

He was born in Syria, a 10 hour drive from Damascus, however he had been living and working in Damascus for 12 years as a builder. He would make the journey home to see his family a few times a year. One day (he said it was in 2012) he was speaking with his father, who told him the war would not finish anytime soon, it would be terrible and he should take his family and leave to discover a new life…far away from Syria. Soon after he took his wife and then just two children and moved back to his home town, staying with his brother for 6 months.

He then went to Duhok Iraq with his wife’s brother, to work, leaving his wife in the town with their children. He returned home after 5 months, staying for a few months before moving his family to Duhok where they stayed for 3 years from 2013 to 2016, they had their third child in this time.

In 2016 they travelled to Hakkari Turkey, - a city in the mountains close to the Turkish/Iraqi border - he had some friends there so they stayed for a month. From there they headed to Istanbul to meet a friend, turns out this person wasn’t much of a friend as him let them down and didn’t show. They travelled direct from there to Izmir as another friend offered to help, they stayed for 10 days.

22 February 2016, Kawa and his family boarded a boat to leave Izmir. They paid a much higher rate to be taken on a tourist boat but it was much safer than the others. He told me that they had enjoyed the journey, his kids were looking over the side, it was very safe and took only 20 minutes to Chios island. They stayed for one night in a tent before travelling by boat to Athens. When they arrived in Athens they were told that the borders were closed they were not permitted to leave Athens, they must register for a camp and wait.

They stayed 4 or 5 days with other families, hopeful of reaching and crossing the borders inspite of the news. As the days passed more people arrived and a group of around 200 people formed, they would not be staying in Athens! The group marched to the train station, it took 3 hours and when they arrived they discovered there were no trains to Thessaloniki. Everybody slept in front of the train station that night.

28 February 2016, the next day, they headed to Thessaloniki. Again they slept outside with their children in the bus station - I myself had been travelling to this location regularly in the early days of my arrival in Greece to provide food, water and whatever else I could find or fundraise for the people staying there. The conditions were beyond inhumane.

The next day they took a taxi to Idomeni, the border. It was closed, and not only that, a Jungle camp had formed with families and individuals waiting for it to reopen or for a solution. They stayed there for just under a month in a tent, through the rain and the cold. They even celebrated Newroz there.

26 March 2016, volunteers arrived at Idomeni camp spreading the news that it would be taken down by the authorities, they all needed to move to official camps and get registered with the UNHCR. They boarded a bus and were brought to Veria Refugee Camp, which in the grand scheme of things was far from a bad alternative to the current situation they were in, however little did they know that they would stay at the next destination for over a year waiting for relocation.

We discussed where he would like to go with his family. As part of the interview process, each person or family were given the option to choose 8 countries from a list of where they wish to be relocated. Although it did not mean they would get any of the 8! He told me he wishes to go to Ireland as it’s close to England, where some of his family and friends are living.

edit - Kawa and his family were relocated to France.

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Borak Albaz
Shadi Al-Jouma

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