Former Refugee Recalls Danger of Being Smuggled in Truck
people who were found dead in the back of a truck in southeastern
England this week.
The
29-year-old Syrian refugee found himself gasping for breath inside a
refrigerated shipping container with a group of migrants and a load of
frozen chicken when a planned trip across the English Channel turned
into hours of terror in 2015. The truck hadn't even left the French port
of Calais when someone heard the cries of the desperate migrants and
opened the doors.
``I was in their shoes. I knew the desperation of their last moments,''
he said of the people who died this week. ``In my case, someone came to
help me. [For them], all their screams were in vain.''
Authorities are calling Wednesday's truck container discovery in a town
near London one of Britain's worst human smuggling cases. Rashid said it
brought his journey to the U.K., and its terrors, back in stark
relief.
'One hell to another'
Rashid fled Aleppo in 2013, thinking he would return to his wife and two
children in a few weeks. He first went to northern Iraq, where he
taught English to other refugees. But the shooting and bombs followed
him ``from one hell to another,'' so he finally decided to pay smugglers
to help him get to Europe.
The journey took Rashid from Iraq to Turkey and Greece, where Rashid
said the smugglers opened a suitcase full of passports and gave him one
from Bulgaria. From Greece, he traveled to Marseille in southern France,
then on to ``The Jungle,'' a notorious camp outside Calais where
migrants gathered in hopes of hitching rides to the U.K. until it was
closed in 2016.
Even after he almost suffocated in the back of the shipping container,
Rashid recalled trying to get across the channel until he finally
succeeded, hiding in the back of a truck — but just a regular one that
wasn't airtight.
He was eventually granted asylum, allowing him to start a new life and bring his wife and children to Britain.
In contrast to his own arrival, Rashid met his family at Heathrow
Airport and drove them back to his apartment in the central English city
of Derby.
``They could fly, you know, safely, with dignity,'' Rashid said. ``And
this was the whole point for me making this journey, because it was for
the sake of my family.''
``They don't see you as a human being. They see you as a commodity, as money, as an object,'' he said. ``Never, ever, trust them. I mean, I had to put my faith inthem and I regretted it.''
Rashid told his story to The Associated Press to try to make people understand that migrants and refugees gamble their lives in sealed trucks and leaky rafts because safer routes have been closed to them. They take risks because they feel like they have no other choice, he said.
``No one puts their life in danger for no reason,'' Rashid said. ``People do this out of desperation.''
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