19 Nazar

Nazar. 39 years old. Sudanese | Nazar wrote his story in a school notebook: “Since I was a child, I have been curious to know how and why things work.” At Koranic school, he refused to learn without thinking. He questioned what he was being taught about religion. “From the time I was 10 years old, I could see that anything that was a source of joy or amusement, we were told was haram, ‘forbidden’. I was a kid and I wondered why God was forbidding us from doing all the things that give joy.” So Nazar stopped believing in God. But in Sudan, “it was impossible to say that, so I preferred to leave. . . . If I had said it, they might have killed me.” After leaving his family at the age of 17, Nazar lived in different parts of the country but his problem remained the same. He then decided to go into exile. “When I made the crossing, we almost drowned, but I didn’t care: I said to myself, if I drown, I drown, but I won’t go back to Sudan. I have to get out of here.” | Centre d’hébergement d’urgence pour migrants, Bobigny, France. 2017.