Refuge: Private worlds in exile

Constance and her son Christ. 22 years old and 3 days old. Cameroonian – Constance and her partner Yannick were kidnapped while traveling along the border between Algeria and Libya. They were separated. She was locked up in one of the many illegal prisons where migrants are ransomed, raped, and often murdered.
Constance was carrying Yannick’s child and she was coming to full term. With the help of her fellow inmates, she tried to escape: “I couldn’t climb the fence. The girls were carrying me. It wasn’t going well. They said to me, ‘Make an effort. If they find us, we’ll die.’” The small group arrived in Sabratha from where the boats leave for Europe. Constance was paralyzed by fear. One of her fellow inmates paid for her passage and forced her to embark in the middle of the night. A few hours later, on July 11, 2017, Constance gave birth in the middle of the Mediterranean. “No one helped me in the boat. There were only two women on board, but they couldn’t move. When it happened, I was the only one pushing. When the head came out, I pulled him out. The men around me were watching but they didn’t speak French. Christ came out and cried. It lasted 45 minutes. It was during the day.” In hindsight, Constance thinks she should have called her son Moses. | Aquarius 2017

Dialo. 22 years old. Ivorian - Dialo followed his friends on Facebook who had left for Europe. Some told him it would be easy for him over there. In March 2017, he decided to leave with the blessing of his family who could no longer pay for his high school education. The day before, “a sheep was sacrificed” and Dialo then set off for Europe. On the day he arrived in Libya he was kidnapped by the Asma Boys, as happens to so many other Africans. “They started hassling us. They asked us to call our parents to send 3,000 dollars. . . . In prison, they mistreated us. Every day, they hit you—they whip you to death. They killed a friend of mine. We left together and he stayed there.” | Aquarius 2017

Omar. 19 years old. Syrian – The young man has seen and experienced too many difficult things. His father is said to be a powerful figure close to the Syrian authorities, who protected his son but also had him imprisoned. “My father was rich and he told me that if I studied in a military school I would become rich like him.” The episodes in Omar’s life are tied up with the intrigues of the conflict: imprisonment, the murder of his girlfriend, a car full of explosives and the “666 services of the Syrian government.” Chaos and violence became part of the nightmares of a troubled teenager. Omar lives in a collective container at the Samos hotspot. He has just been authorized to continue his journey to Athens. | Hot spot Samos - Greece 2017

Jamaloddin. 52 years old. Iranian refugee in Iraqi Kurdistan – For Jamal, the tents at the Samos Island hotspot are full of dreams: “These are the dreams of a fifty-year-old man, like me, or those of a child. Mine are bigger than my tiny little tent.” Jamal dreams of publishing all the books he was not allowed to publish in his country. He dreams of one day seeing his wife back in Iran or finding their children who have emigrated to Germany. In the meantime, he writes and reads poems to the doll who keeps him company in his tent. An Iranian Kurd, Jamal was forced to leave his country in 2005 to settle in Iraqi Kurdistan. In 2016, the political alliances between Kurdistan and Iran pushed him back onto the road. “I couldn’t even take two books with me. I closed the apartment I had rented and left with a small bag. . . . I miss my books the most.” | Hot spot Samos - Greece 2017

Naef, Katrin, Maran, Zina and Manal. 28 years old, 18 months, 9 years old, 26 years old and 7 years old. Iraqi Yezidis. | Naef and her family were living in Sinjar, a province in northern Iraq, when the Islamic state group took control of the region in August 2014 and massacred part of the population. The family first took refuge in the Duhok camp, north of Mosul, before heading to Europe. Their five-year-old son Karam was able to reach Germany with his grandmother. But with the closure of Europe’s internal borders, Naef, Zina, and their three daughters are now stuck in Katsikas camp in Greece. Maran wants her little brother and grandmother whom she hasn’t seen in over a year. She misses everything: her friends, school, “and the food is bad in the camp.” | Katsikas camp - Greece. 2016

Karam and his grandmother Khoke. Iraqi Yezidis. 50 and 6 years old. | Karam arrived in Germany in January 2016 and lives with Khoke, his grandmother, in a refugee center on the outskirts of Hanover. They are Yazidis from Iraq. Karam already speaks German and is going to start his first year of school. But his parents and three sisters are stuck in Greece (portrait of Naef, Katrin, Maran, Zina and Manal). They have been waiting for a year and a half for the European administration’s permission to join Karam in Germany. The boy talks on the phone with his parents five times a week, but he doesn’t know when he will be able to hug them. | Hanovre - Germany 2017

Nour and Tarek. 31 and 36 years old. Syrians. | Nour and Tarek have three children. They had chosen to teach in the village where they were born in Syria, near Damascus. “It’s a very good place to live. It’s easy to teach people you know.” “The village is a family,” says Nour nostalgically. In 2011, war broke out and took hold in the country for the long-term. Nour and Tarek wanted to stay despite the violence that was seeping into their daily lives a little more each day. But when their children came home from school singing ISIS hymns, they knew that they had to leave Syria. “Because having bad things in the head is worse than seeing people killed.” It took five years for Nour and Tarek to decide to go into exile. After ten days of travel, the couple and their three children arrived in Greece in March 2016. The family has been living for a few months in a hotel room requisitioned by activists. Nour writes poems there thinking of the loved ones who stayed behind: « For a mother I left behind, – her eyes can never leave my mind, – the day I left keeps knocking on my door, – it upends my soul, strikes me again and again – and I can never know if I will see them again one day.» | City Plaza, Athens – Greece 2017

Mohamed. 16 years old. Malian. | Following a crime committed by his brother, Mohamed was no longer welcome in his village. The family home was ransacked and Mohamed was forced to move far away. The young man then traveled from Mali to Niger. He sold bags of water, cooked spaghetti on the street, or carried the luggage of travelers whom he would eventually follow. Shunted from one encounter to the next, Mohamed eventually arrived in Libya where he experienced an ordeal. “They locked me up for two or three months there. Because I didn’t have the money to pay. The bandits come and see you: if you pay, they let you go. . . . Otherwise, they hit you and hit you.” Released by an Ivorian living in Libya, Mohamed had to work to repay his benefactor. To “build his life,” he decided to cross the Mediterranean. Whenever he can, he calls an acquaintance of his father in Mali. “He says good words to me: ‘If you are a man, you will always be a man. You have to be brave. Your father is fine.’ . . . If he talks about my father, it gives me the strength to keep going.” | Paroisse San Antonio, Vintimille, Italia 2017

Ibrahim. 32 years old. Ivorian. | Ibrahim is exhausted. Now, he almost never leaves his container at the Red Cross camp in Ventimiglia. When his father died in 2006, he was dispossessed of his inheritance by his uncle. Without any resources, he was forced to stop studying law: “My destiny stopped. I had invested so much in my studies.” All his dreams and plans for the future were destroyed. The conflict with his uncle, and the spells he would send him, poisoned Ibrahim’s life and pushed him to leave. “Honestly, I didn’t really want to leave the country. Because I know a little about what adventure is really like. . . . I wanted to hold on, but unfortunately I couldn’t. . . . It was a decision that I made in despair. . . . To tell you the truth, I may have taken this path to Europe with only one objective in mind, to maybe die in the Mediterranean. Yes, maybe that could have put an end to all of this.” | Red Cross Camp, Vintimille - Italia 2017

Altaher. 29 years old. Sudanese | His journey to the Calais Jungle lasted a year and a half. Today, Altaher has given up trying to reach Britain; he thinks it’s too complicated. Too expensive. Friends told him about Nantes and Angers. Without knowing these cities, he would like to settle there and work as a construction worker. Abdallah, Altaher’s roommate and compatriot, decorated their shelter. He too has not tried to cross the Channel for a long time. Where does he want to go? He no longer even knows. Abdallah doesn’t leave his house much anymore. Day and night, he paints, repaints, and beautifies their cabin in an almost mystical way. | Calais, France 2016

Abdelraouf. 40 years old. Sudanese | His parents lived in a round house made of branches and thatch. He remembers swimming in the Nile, wheat fields, and family harvests. Abdelraouf misses this time when there were no barriers between houses or between people. In 2013, he left Sudan for Libya because of the war. But war broke out there too, pushing him to flee to Europe. When he arrived in Calais, he thought he would simply buy a train ticket to London, but the other refugees explained to him that he had to hide in a truck. He refused at first, finding it too humiliating. But since then, he has come to terms with it and has been trying almost every day for over a year. Today he is tired of hiding, tired of failing, tired of the violence of some police officers. | Calais, France 2016

Abdallah. 24 years old. Afghan | Abdallah was a grocer in Nangarhar province. Therefore it was natural for him to open a grocery store in the Calais Jungle. He has no desire to leave. His business is doing well and his friends are here. His youngest daughter was born in the camp. Her name is Arzou, “hope” in Dari. | Calais, France. 2016

Ismaël. 18 years old. Sudanese | Ismaël has the smile of those who have just been granted political asylum in France. The 18-year-old lived in Darfur in a village near Nyala. He worked in the fields on the family farm. The war pushed Ismaël into exile. He worked for six months in Libya to pay for the illegal crossing to Europe via Italy and then Germany. He finally arrived in Calais and has been living in the Jungle since October 2015. Ismaël would like to stay in France to study and learn a trade. He understands that there are many schools in Lille. A city he already loves without knowing anything of it. | Calais, France 2016

Awesome. 43 years old. Pakistani | He is the owner of Les Trois Idiots, the most beautiful restaurant in the Jungle, where many foreign volunteers gather alongside the inhabitants of the camp. Awesome likes to welcome Europeans to his establishment: a little word for everyone and a selfie souvenir that he will hang on the wall. His English is impeccable. He was a tour guide in Peshawar until tourists became scarce and threats to those who associated with them became more serious. Awesome decided to leave. After a year and a half of travel, he no longer wishes to go to the UK and instead dreams of opening a new establishment in Paris! Why The Three Idiots? Because Awesome started this business with two friends, fans, like him, of the Bollywood classic The Three Idiots. | Calais, France. 2016

Ali. 18 years old. Born in Kuwait, stateless | Ali’s cabin looks like a child’s bedroom. There is a puzzle hanging on the wall representing a beautiful European house. Ali was born in Kuwait into a Bedouin family. He explains that the Bedouins have no rights in that country, not even Kuwaiti nationality. Ali has always lived in a tent and this cabin is his first “home.” In Kuwait, his tribe traveled on camels. To reach Europe, Ali overcame his fear by taking a plane and a boat for the first time. He misses the desert and its sunsets. He recalls his childhood memories with nostalgia, when he kept sheep on horseback or made sandmen in the desert after the rain. Ali reveals that he has a dream: to work for a year or two in Britain so that he can send his sick mother on a pilgrimage to Mecca. | Calais, France. 2016

Saman. 26 years old. Iraqi Kurdish. | Although he is usually smiling and very friendly, Saman is silent today and his eyes are empty. The previous day, with other migrants, he left the Linière camp around 2 a.m. to take a bus that dropped them off at a motorway rest stop controlled by smugglers. They crouched in the bushes waiting for a truck to be pointed out. Eight of them got into a trailer. The truck went to park somewhere else. There, they waited for thirteen hours; then the truck parked in another parking lot. The driver then shouted at them to come down. This was Saman’s forty-eighth attempt since he arrived in Grande-Synthe ten months ago. Saman shows the keys to the house he lived in with his parents. He didn’t have time to say goodbye to them. He dreams of going back one day and opening the door with these keys.| Grande-Synthe, France 2016

Abas, Soad and their daughter Melina. 32 years old, 28 years old and 1 month old. Iraqi Kurds. | Abas and Soad are Kurdish. They fled the war in Iraq and hoped to arrive in Britain before Melina was born. But the couple came across dishonest smugglers who took all their savings and never helped them to cross. For over a year, Abas and Soad have been stuck without money in Grande-Synthe but they are trying to get through anyway. Soad gave birth in Dunkirk and volunteers gave her a crib. Abas hopes that with Brexit, the British government will allow migrants to cross the Channel. | Grande-Synthe, France. 2016.

Asma. 42 years old. Sudanese. | While her two daughters and husband left the village to visit relatives, Asma had to flee a Janjaweed militia attack in the middle of the night. Terrorized and wounded, she remained hidden for several days in the bush. Too traumatized to return, she followed compatriots to Egypt and then Libya. In Tripoli, she worked for a while in a restaurant to pay for the care she needed since the attack on her village. Unable to return to her country and contact her family, Asma set out for Europe with other migrants. She sleeps on a cardboard box in the streets of Paris. What worries her the most is that she has no news of her husband and daughters. | Avenue de Flandre, Paris, France. 2017

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.

Tassin. 24 years old. Afghan | Tassin is very proud to have walked all the way— for more than six months—from Afghanistan to France. With three compatriots he met in Turkey, he crossed Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, Hungary, Austria, Germany, and Italy. Once in Paris, they had their photograph taken in front of the Gare du Nord like champions at the finish line of a marathon. Tassin had this portrait printed on a mug that he shows to his guests. He misses his mother, wife, and five-year-old son who stayed behind. However, Tassin is pleased to live in a country where “there are no problems.” One of the things that surprises him the most in France is all the appointments: “I didn’t know anything about appointments over there. There are no appointments in Afghanistan! Ah, but now I understand what an appointment is: today, I went to the prefecture for an appointment and they gave me another appointment! One appointment for a receipt and another for the real residence permit, there are always appointments!” | Résidence Les Cinq Toits, Paris, France 2019

Fatima, Youssouf and their 5 children. 34 and 32 years old. | Youssouf has tears in his eyes when his children recall the nights spent in the streets of Paris, when the municipal humanitarian emergency services had no more room for them. “We didn’t have a blanket, only plastic bags,” recalls Hamou, 11, assuring that he was “not afraid.” Noor, 12, remembers the Utopia 56 organization: “They found families who could take us in.” “Once we stayed with people who had animals! We played with the rabbits and chickens,” says 9-year- old Fathia.
Today, their situation is more stable. Maria, born in 2018, is passed around the courtyard of the former Exelmans barracks, which has been converted into a shelter. The family lives in a two-bedroom apartment. Youssouf can relax a little. He coaches the barracks soccer team. Fatima is training as a florist and the four elder children, who go to school, are categorical: “My favorite house is here at the Aurore organization. There is a kitchen and we can play in the courtyard,” says Noor. “There is hip-hop and French, dancing, and singing classes,” Soraya adds. “I play football.” “And I dance and run middle distance,” Hamou and Fathia add in turn. | Résidence Les Cinq Toits, Paris, France 2019

Safi. 34 years old. Afghan. | “My father-in-law asked me to leave because I was being threatened by the Taliban. . . . My mother preferred to not see me anymore rather than for me to be killed in front of her.” Safi kissed his four children and left his village at dawn. After six months traveling, he arrived in Paris on August 11, 2015. He now enjoys refugee status and is taking steps to bring his three boys over. His twelve-year-old daughter, Manour, will not follow them, because her paternal grandmother wants to keep the girl with her. Resigned, Safi explains that in Afghanistan you cannot refuse what your mother asks. In fact, it was also his mother who chose to marry Safi with his cousin. “I am almost 40 years old and I wonder why I never experienced love in Afghanistan. I am very happy to see that in France, love exists.”
All that Abas, Ayub, and Yasser—aged 14, 13, and 10—know of Paris are the pictures their father sends them. Safi explains to his sons that here they can go to school and have a better future. “The day my children arrive will be the first happy day of my life.” | Centre d’hébergement René Coty, Paris, France 2019

Mamady. 18 years old. Malian | Mamady is completing a professional qualification in carpentry in Paris. “My aim is to be trained here...I would like to go back to my village to do carpentry. Because there, it’s ok if you can find money... Furniture sells well back home: I will make beds and garden benches. We put them outside when it’s sunny there. People go outside to talk.” Mamady lived with his “mom” in Mali. He crossed Algeria, Libya, and the Mediterranean to land in Italy in November 2014. “It was my mom who helped me find money to come: she baked cakes and sold them.” When he arrived in Paris, he was asked for his date of birth. “I had my passport and I showed it... The judge said I was a minor. I didn’t want to be a minor because I was afraid he would send me back to the village.” But Mamady was sent to Brittany. “We played football in the morning and evening, I had a lot of friends and I wanted to stay there.” Eventually, the young man who loved the Breton climate, the sea, and crêpes had to return to Paris to start his training. Mamady is now 18 years old and will soon be a qualified carpenter. In Mali, his mother died on November 17, 2016. | Les Grands Voisins, foyer de l’association Aurore, Paris, France 2019

Ali. 27 years old. Sudanese. | When Ali graduated as a veterinarian, he was sent to Darfur, his home province, to conduct a vaccination campaign. The young man was back in his native region, which he had left to pursue his studies. It had been totally devastated by ten years of war. “The villages had all been destroyed… Shepherds and people with animals hid in the forests. Since 2003, I hadn’t seen our countryside: I was both happy and very sad.” His mother lived in a refugee camp in Chad, his father is dead, and his brothers and sisters are scattered in several countries. The young man left for Jordan, where he discovered that Sudanese refugees are not allowed to work there. He then took the road to Libya and embarked on a trip to Europe, hoping to finally be able to practice his profession as a veterinarian there. Having arrived in Paris, Ali is struggling to master the French language. He did four internships in veterinary clinics but his degree from Nyala University is not recognized in France. “It’s very difficult to start five years of study again. I’m 27 years old, it’s a little late. I’m going to try to become a veterinary assistant. I have to find a boss and do a work-study contract. But to do that, I need to improve my French.” | Centre d’hébergement René Coty, Paris, France. 2018.

Wahid. 17 years old. Afghan. | Wahid arrived in France in April 2017. Following an X-ray bone age test of his wrist, he was not recognized as a minor by the French administration. According to this test, which has an estimated margin of error of two years, he had only just turned 18. Like many other young foreigners, Wahid then became an unrecognized minor. This means he has no access to the facilities intended for adult foreigners or to those intended for minors. The young man would be homeless if not for two organizations: Doctors Without Borders helps Wahid to get access to care and assists him in his legal efforts to have his minority recognized, while Utopia 56 found him a foster family. In Lognes, Laurence, Jean-Denis, and their sons opened their home to him. Their son Yanis, who is 15 years old, made it his mission to make sure Wahid gets up to speed on video games and movies. As for Jean-Denis, he had to get back on his bike to keep up with his young guest on the slopes of Seine-et-Marne. | Lognes, France 2019

Adjaratou. 17 years old. Ivorian. | “I had never seen a man who cooks and cleans!” exclaims Adjaratou. The young girl has discovered the daily life of a French family: for the past six months, Adja has been living alternately with Chenda and Gregory and with another family as part of the Accueillons (welcome) scheme developed by Doctors Without Borders and the organization Utopia 56 in order to provide host families to young foreigners who have not been recognized as minors by the French administration. Paloma, 4 years old, left Adjaratou her room. Her older sister, Lola, 12, helps Adja with her French lessons, while the young Ivorian girl teaches the two girls her mother tongue, dioula. Chenda remembers sharing her room too. That was forty years ago, with her aunt Risey. Bunath, Chenda’s father, welcomed Risey who was fleeing Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge regime. “I was 6 years old,” recalls Chenda. “I was learning to read and Risey, who was 20, was learning French with a small manual. I still remember the pictures we looked at together.” Chenda now sees the same close relationship between her daughters and the young Adjaratou. Bunath is now 76 years old. In the house, everyone calls him “grandpa.” | Saint-Denis, France. 2019.

Mohamed. 25 years old. Sudanese | Four silhouettes left Banyuls at dawn and walked to the French-Spanish border. It was September 25, 1940: Lisa Fittko helped the philosopher Walter Benjamin and two other German refugees to leave France illegally. In 1939, this same path was called the “Route Lister” by the Spanish Republicans fleeing their country. It was renamed the “route F” by the network of smugglers to which Lisa belonged. In June 2018, Mohamed and his three companions followed the same route in the opposite direction. They got off the train at the Spanish station of Portbou to cross the Pyrenees on foot. When they arrived in Banyuls, residents offered them board and lodging. A group was soon formed to support them. Touched by this welcome, Mohamed and Habib decided to stay in Banyuls. Olivia and Émilie provided them with two rooms in their apartment and advised them on their administrative procedures. Mohamed was involved as a volunteer at the soccer club and quickly became the children’s coach. Unfortunately, he is subject to the so-called Dublin procedure, which requires him to seek asylum in the European country through which he arrived. In February 2019, he was suddenly arrested and deported to Italy. When he managed to return to Banyuls, “the children all jumped on him and kissed him… They really adopted him,” says the club president, moved.

Ahmad, Iman and their son Laith. 27, 22 and 2 years old. Syrian. | When their families took refuge in Jordan, Ahmad and Iman became neighbors. On both sides of the street, both mothers asked their children if they wanted to marry. Ahmad said yes right away, while Iman took two days to think it over. The girl knew that by marrying Ahmad, she would never be able to return to her country. Her suitor deserted the Syrian army in November 2011, “when they started using weapons against civilians.” Enrolled in the United Nations refugee resettlement program, the young couple arrived in France with their son in November 2017. They like the city of Montargis, because “there is no racism and all nationalities live together in their building.” Ahmad and Iman are particularly affected by the residents of the retirement home next door. Every day, as they pass by, they try to exchange a few words with the elderly. Ahmad does not understand why “these old people are left there.” As for Iman, when she watches her son play on their laps, her thoughts go out to her parents who returned to Syria without her. | Montargis, France 2019

Ikram. 27 years old. Afghan. | Ikram is building a station near Nanterre in the Paris suburbs. He works for a large construction company. In his team, “there are only blue eyes, everyone comes from France.” “My colleagues are good people. Where I work, the atmosphere couldn’t be nicer.” But for Ikram, “the hardest thing is to get up every day at 4.30 a.m.” to get to his site. After traveling for “two months, all with his feet,” from Afghanistan to France, the young man slept in the streets of Paris and then in a migrant accommodation center. After getting refugee status, he was selected to participate in an apprenticeship training program with Geiq*. Ikram has agreed to become a workman, yet he dreams of studying. “But my language is different from that of the university… I have to learn the language and then study.” His girlfriend, Siam, helps him master French when they go out, to the Eiffel Tower or the Champs-Elysées: “When I have trouble understanding, she speaks with words but also with her hands!” he says, admiringly. *The Geiq is a group of companies which aim to promote the inclusion of people who find themselves outside the labor market. | Résidence pour étudiants, Bry-sur-Marne, France. 2019.

Mahmoud. 27 years old. Sudanese | “If I stay here, what am I to do? In Europe, there is the good life, but I don’t want to live here. I need to live with my parents, to do something for society there in Sudan… But there is no other solution, because in Sudan I would be in prison.” After completing his librarian studies in Khartoum, Mahmoud returned to his hometown of Al Fashir in Darfur. With a few friends, he created a volunteering organization to teach in high schools where teachers are sorely lacking. But by accepting aid from a United Nations mission, the group got on the wrong side of the police who ordered them to stop collaborating with the international organization. Mahmoud was arrested and imprisoned in Khartoum. Thanks to the help of a friend, he escaped and reached Libya and then Europe by sea. In June 2017, one year after arriving in France, Mahmoud obtained refugee status, which enabled him to begin training as a formwork carpenter with the Geiq. “This is a big opportunity for me. Because when you work, you can learn French faster.” However, Mahmoud is concerned that his youth will pass him by in exile: “Too much time is wasted on papers, in the camps. We don’t want to live like this: sleeping on the street. Then staying in the camps to sleep, eat, sleep. We come here because we have no choice: we are refugees!” Mahmoud wants to work in order to learn French and go to university. But his dearest wish would be to be able to return to live among his own people. | Foyer pour jeunes travailleurs, Val d’Argenteuil, France 2019