A chance encounter with an Afghan refugee in southern Iran in 2002 led to a fascinating afternoon of chess and tea at the refugee's home, as described in Poverty in Iran, Shiraz Travel with Afghan Refugees. This article is a continuation of that story, during which Samir the refugee spoke of his determination to get to England and seek asylum. I doubted that it was possible, but we said our goodbyes and planned our onward journeys - he to London, and I through the Middle East and Africa to Cape Town. The story continues with an account of his successful attempt to reach England.
Asylum seeker refugee on the move
We exchanged email addresses and I continued my travels through the Middle East. One day in Israel, I had word that he was on the move, without passport, without papers. Destination England. An email from Turkey, another from Bulgaria. A request for money from Budapest. As I sat with a beer in Kigali some months later, I felt I could not refuse him assistance and so wired him money to Hungary. Quite how he was managing all this was a mystery.
Next stop was Vienna, where my friend George had kindly agreed to host him, and from there he disappeared into France, staying for weeks in Bordeaux with a Frenchman whom he had befriended in Iran. Calais had proved too cold and difficult and so he had headed to Caen, where he had hid under a lorry, clinging to its axle for six hours until it stopped somewhere. He found himself at a petrol station, took some tea and jogged for an hour. Upon asking, he was informed that he had arrived in Winchester.
Computer courses in London
We met again, almost a year to the day after my chess lessons in Shiraz, this time in a fast food restaurant in North London, where he had found a job. He had claimed asylum and been granted permission to stay and work in London for four years. He had enrolled on his computer course and was renting a small flat. He worked seven nights a week and five afternoons too. He was ecstatically happy, but the trip had been hell.
He had paid people smugglers $5,000 to get him as far as Austria and the trip had been fraught with danger. Often, he was cooped up with other asylum-seekers for up to 48 hours with no food or water and then told to move at two minutes notice. They crossed high rivers, where authorities had posted pictures of other asylum seekers who had died making the crossing. Any illusions that there might be any romance in this bid for a better life were quashed by his tale.
“And you know what makes me angry, Paul? It took me ten minutes to tell this tale, which does not even begin to describe the hell of those seven months.” I asked him what it had been like underneath that truck, he must have been terrified. “Not at all, it was the most comfortable bed in the world, because I knew that once I left it, I would finally be in England.”
His thoughts were continuously on his family. He had discussed the merits of trying to reach England at length and all agreed that it was the best option available. Before he left, his mother advised him to have another child. There was a very real possibility that he might not see his wife again for years; a month after he arrived in Winchester, he learned that a healthy daughter awaited him in Iran when he returned.
And he was planning to return. By working all hours, he was saving about five hundred pounds a month. There was enough money to move his family into a bigger place back in Shiraz, so that they could live with dignity. There was even a phone, so that he could call and hear the screams of his new daughter. He would be able to go just as soon as his papers were sorted in a couple of months.
Home telephone connection
We met once more in London, some months later, at his home in a leafy, desirable residential North London house. ‘Home’ was the front room of the building and there was scarcely enough room to move. I knocked on the door, which had a “Welcome, Paul” sign on it. It turned out that I was his first visitor – I had never paused to consider the lonely existence of the successful asylum-seeker before.
The room was basic, but comfortable enough – a single bed, hot-plate, fridge, desk and chair, and Samir’s pride and joy, a second-hand computer, complete with his own telephone line.
“So that I can speak to my family when I want,” he beamed. Always back to the family, his thoughts constantly with them. There was a shared bathroom with the other residents, all asylum seekers.
“You are welcome, Paul. Some tea?” As the water boiled, I looked across at this remarkable young man, and considered the determination and drive that had brought him to this basic room in England. Always skinny, he seemed to have lost more weight since last I had seen him, his furtive brown eyes hinting at the trauma that had befallen him. He was casually dressed in a t-shirt and, once he began to relax in my company, he began to smile and laugh, but even then I detected a wall behind the smile; he may have liked me and I might have helped him, but I suspected that he still did not trust me. I could understand that.
It was Ramadan and so Samir was fasting. I consumed a second cup of tea and he opened his fridge to see what he could offer me. A friend had sent Toblerone chocolate from Zurich, would I care for some? I declined, feeling it rude to eat in front of someone who was fasting. His conversation returned to the trip over from Iran. He told me of a couple in the group who had drowned while crossing a border into (I think) Hungary, of being packed thirty strong into a tight hole in a truck, too small to stand, too small to sit, too small to be there at all, but they crouched in a semi-squat position for hours, while being jostled by the seemingly careless driver.
Click here for the conclusion of Following an Asylum Seeker from Shiraz to Winchester.
Paul Bradbury - Author of Hvar: An Insider's Guide to Croatia's Premier Island, and Lebanese Nuns Don't Ski
Join the Conversation