Amin went by his last name, Khairul. His fate shows a long-simmering conflict that only came to wide attention this past fall. His odyssey began in 2007/8 when he was about 9 years old (he does not remember exactly).
Trace Khairul's journey by following the link to Google Earth (download the .kmz file + open in Google Earth) or a simplified mobile version on Google MyMaps
“Are you my new mother?”
asks Khairul, the Rohingya refugee, with a smile and a raised eyebrow. I had taken his plight to heart, googled for a translator, Rohingya organizations, and organize him a lawyer. He is 18 and is just learning English at the daily late afternoon class. Impossible to navigate the asylum process without English, so he did need the support. I hesitated, was this ironic or was there some seriousness in his smile? “No,” I reply, “your Mother is a special person I cannot replace. But I can be your friend.” He looks pensive at the thought of his mother who he saw the last time 9 years ago. We communicate in broken English, with maps, with Google translate from Farsi. Asked about his education, Khairul tells me how the police in Myanmar threw him out of school as a stateless Rohingya child.
How did a Rohingya get to Greece, where most refugees are from the Near East and central Africa?
Khairul's story begins in Maungdaw
... a town in southern Myanmar across from the Bangladeshi border. It is 2008. Returning from his outdoor play, the 9-year old found his house empty. Neighbors told him that his parents had been taken away by the police. Together with his brother the two went to the police station, but were kicked out without being able to see their parents. Different neighbors took in the kids. When they learned that their hut was burnt (Khairul remembers it as having happened within days) a fisherman suggested he would be safer in neighboring Muslim Bangladesh. The fisherman took him to to Teknaf or Chittan in Bangladesh - just a few kilometers across a wide river. He did not know he would never return.
This is how he got separated from his brother and believes all his family is dead now. Not being able to read and write, not being registered in any municipality in Burma, he cannot even trace his family.
The Rohingya are a Muslim minority who immigrated several generations ago from neighboring British colonies and never had citizen status in Buddhist Burma, now Myanmar. Indifference gave way to waves of active persecution accompanied by rumors of atrocities on both sides that lead to lynchings and burning of villages.
He stayed 2 weeks, and then an older Bangladeshi couple in their fifties took him on a fishing boat to Kolkata, India. They soon moved on with the same fishing boat, all the way around India he believes, to Korangi, a small town near Karachi in Pakistan. “I was just a small boy, I do not remember where exactly we travelled. I don’t know my birthday, either.”
All he remembers was that these first stays were not long, and the couple was kind to him. Then they left Korangi.
Khairul stayed with street children and then found work and shelter with a group of Afghani fishermen. He worked every day for food but only sometimes got paid. He learned to fish, to clean and cook the fish, and to sell them on the market. When there was no fishing work, he collected garbage or did other odd jobs. After about 3 years the Afghanis decided to move to Iran and he went with them, again via boat, to Bandar Abbas. For the next 4 years he continued the same work for them and managed to save a little bit.
When he was 16 or 17, the Afghanis told him that “Europe has school, wash, and clothes” and it would be good for him to go there. He could not stay with them any longer.
He took his savings and joined a group of men on a bus to the Turkish border. He remembers paying only “a little”. Then they walked for one week through the mountains to search for a place to cross the frontier. He paid the Turkish smugglers 3 million Riad (about US $100), to get to Ankara, where he stayed 20 days to arrange his journey to Izmir and the crossing to the Greek island of Lesbos. He did not say much about the crossing, just that he arrived on Nov 3rd 2016 and was placed into the Moria camp during the most severe winter the island has experienced in decades. Another refugee showed me photos of tents, knee-deep in snow. Later, containers arrived for better shelter.
The frequent fights and fires scared the gentle boy – they reminded him of Myanmar. He found a small group of fellow Rohingya, who joined a squat that proved to be only marginally safer. 2 months ago his phone went – what the refugees call ‘AliBaba’ – it was stolen by a fellow squat refugee. Tragically, it had the only small bits of personal history that he had brought with him, including the contact to the Afghan people who had given him work all those years. He had learned to speak some Urdu and Farsi, but never had the chance to go to school. He does not know how to spell their names or search for them. He manages his second-hand mobile phone with amazing dexterity, figuring out basic English words and using emoji.
So here he is, the dependable help of a Syrian doctor who now runs the kitchen here and makes 300 hot meals a day (that number has doubled since July). He continues to live in a vacuum, watching others skype with their families. In July, he had been in the camp for 9 months and had not even had the obligatory interview, usually scheduled within a month after arrival. It has been cancelled three times due to a lack of Rohingya interpreters, regardless of the names of interpreters provided by volunteers to the agency running the camp. They did not follow up on the reference. Khairul does not understand the reasons. He speaks some Urdu and Farsi but was told he should interview in his mother tongue to give an exact story and have better chances for asylum.
I accompany him to the lawyer, who has a Farsi translator. He likes his new lawyer, a dedicated woman from the US. She tells him what to expect in the interview scheduled for tomorrow, July 27.
When asked what country he wants to live in, he is not sure. “Near my people”. I google Rohingya communities and find one in Bratford, England – and photos of a Rohingya school in Ottawa, Canada. His eyes light up. “A school for Rohingya?”
On July 27 a volunteer drives him to his 8 AM interview in Moria. At 7:30 it was cancelled – postponed by a month, again. ”This is a very unhappy day for me”, he says his head down, on his way to the kitchen to help prepare lunch.
Later I see him sharing his plate of vegetable stew with a little boy, who is maybe 4.
He smiles as he feeds the little boy spoon after spoon.
(Update late 2017: Khairul finally had an interview but has not received a decision, despite the horrific news going around the world. )
• Update spring/summer 2018: Khairul now has Greek asylum, and left for Athens, following a job offer. When that fell through, he somehow was disqualified for refugee assistance. Neither he nor I could figure out why. No agency seems to be responsible or able to direct him further. Khairul does not understand. He tries to learn Greek and stays with a friend.
• Update spring 2019: Khairul still is in Athens without any prospects for work. My outreach to Rohingya communities I found in England + Canada remain unanswered. Searching for the right people. Any tips are welcome).
• Update May 2019: Here you can follow Khairul as an interactive journey on Google Earth (download the .kmz file + open in Google Earth) or a simplified mobile version on Google MyMaps
• Update August 2019: Good news! Aimin Khairul has a regular 2-day job as a translator + volunteers. He sounds optimistic, makes friends + easily communicates in English now!