I was walking on the street without any reason and some guys shouted at me: “Hey, Afghan, why do you have a red jacket?” I asked them: “What’s the problem with this jacket? If you want you can go and buy one.” They said: “No, you don’t have the right to wear nice clothes.” It was also a problem if I was wearing dirty clothes. They said: “Oh, shitty Afghan, he doesn’t look good”. But if I had nice clothes they said: “Oh, the Afghan has become a human now”. So it was difficult to stop those young guys on the street every day. And every day I just wanted to escape from Iran.
Akvilė Žaromskytė
This is what Inbrahim Nasser, now 34, dreamt of escaping from throughout his adolescence.
Born in Afghanistan, his family moved to Iran when he was four. When Inbrahim was 21, he decided to start a new life in Europe.
The land of his dreams and his preferred destination was the United Kingdom.
But he finally got his residency permit from Italy and now he lives in Sicily. It took him three attempts to escape from Iran to Greece. His was a really dangerous way to travel but just the first set of dangers he faced during a seven year route to a better future.
In a small boat
His successful journey to Greece started on the shores of Turkey. Inbrahim was 23 at the time.
He and four other young men took a small boat. “The boat was really small. We put all our dry clothes inside it, and with one leg in the boat and another in the water we started to row.” They were rowing without warm clothes at the end of December. It was cold and the boat was so small they had to keep one leg in the sea. They didn’t even know how to row.
During a ten hours trip across the sea one of them fell into the water. They pulled him out, and he laid freezing in the boat. Another was crying and praying out loud. The third was just looking at the sea and doing nothing, recalls Nasser.
He told me that the mountain he was looking at was not moving. I said that no mountain should move. We are the ones who have to move.” He willed himself to believe that God would help them reach land so he asked the others not to panic but to row.
Hiding from the police
God was generous and luckily they reached the shores of Greece. Nasser hem and took them to the police office.
He was warming himself up by drinking tea and thinking up an escape plan.
“I asked the policeman if I could change my clothes. He said that I could. I went to the toilet, changed my clothes and when I came out there was a good moment to escape because the policemen were changing shifts.”
he was Greek, some cookies and a can of Pepsi. But before he found somewhere to buy sun glasses he was noticed by the very policeman who had taken him from the sea.
He took Inbrahim back to the station, beat him up and put him in the same cell as all his friends. They took his fingerprints, which meant that Greece was taking responsibility for him. Now he could not move on to another country.
From France to the UK under a truck
He still kept his dream of getting to England where his sister was now living. After a long journey he finally reached France.
He knew that this was his chance of reaching his destination, but finding a smuggler to help wasn’t easy.
After unsuccessful attempts to board a ship, he and a friend decided to get to England in their own way.
They found a ferry which was taking trucks to England. They hid under one of them. His friend installed himself in the spare tyre cavity, and Inbrahim held himself up by hugging the exhaust pipe near the wheels.
When the ship docked in England they thought the truck would stop, but it just started up and kept going. It was winter time.
They were still under the truck which was going fast, so the dirty snow from the highway splattered onto to Inbrahim’s face. He was freezing and couldn‘t feel some parts of his body.
Finally, after a few more hours, the truck stopped, and they ran away.
Waiting for freedom
Inbrahim Nasser spent a short time in England but was returned to Greece by the authorities.
That was his life: facing cruel situations running from the police, and going from one place to another until he finally reached and settled in Italy.
Like all European citizens Inbrahim could live and work legally within the European Union if he has Italian citizenship. To get that he must live in Italy for at least 10 years, and have a job for 3 years. But the economic crisis makes it difficult to find a regular job in Italy.
At the moment he has a residence permit but is still waiting for a permit to leave the country and continue seeking his freedom.
(Photos: Pixabay)
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