The journalist Nidzara Ahmetasevic spoke with Zahra, an Afghan woman seeking asylum in Europe. In this story, she reveals the untold cruelties that people on the move, especially women, are enduring at European borders.
by Nidzara Ahmetasevic
It has been over three years since Zahra (25) left her home in Afghanistan. She left with her baby boy and her husband, and with her head full of hopes that they could find a place where they would be happy and safe. After three years, the journey is still not over.
From the hell of Afghanistan to the horrors of Turkey, where they were held by smugglers, to Moria, the hellish camp in Lesvos, Greece, to the Balkan Route and encounters with the EU border guards, all the while experiencing the violence that they had to go through in their attempts to find peace and happiness.
I got in touch with Zahra via WhatsApp while she was in Bosnia and Herzegovina, living with a number of other families in Bosanska Bojna, a small village near the border with Croatia. The village is half abandoned due to the war which occurred in Bosnia at the beginning of the 90s. Most of the villagers left, becoming refugees and asylum seekers all over the world.
At the end of 2020, their empty houses were turned into shelters for about 100 families from Afghanistan, who arrived to Bosnia walking all the way from Greece. Before coming to Bosnia, until September last year, they stayed in Moria camp, leaving the camp just few days before the fire, after that the camp was burned down to the ground. When they left, many of them believed nothing worse could happen on European soil.
Zahra and I never met personally, but we kept talking over the WhatsApp until today as she is in another European country, getting ready for a further trip. During one of our conversations, she decided to tell me her entire story, asking me in the end to make it public. “For everybody to know about our life.”
This is therefore her story but at the same time the story of many women who are forced to migrate from their countries and look for asylum somewhere else. Policies of closed borders are making their suffering even more painful, while these policies are enforced with violence and criminalisation of migration. Yet, people on the move are trying hard not to let their hopes and dreams be killed, including Zahra.
“I was born and raised in Afghanistan. Before I left with my family, I was working as a school teacher, a dangerous occupation for women in my country.
I got married and kept working. At the same time, I felt less and less secure living there. Our final decision to leave was made after yet another terrorist attack that I witnessed. It happened at 7am one day, very close to my house. We heard a very loud noise, and we left the house to see what was going on. What we saw was a real disaster: dozens of dead people, children, the elderly, women: parts of bodies everywhere.
When the police and emergencies came, they collected body parts, put them in plastic bags, and left to inside the mosque until the other services came to take them away. Some parts were left in the streets until they were eventually cleaned, and stray cats were coming and eating them. It made us determined to leave.
Finally, we left our home in 2017, just after I give birth to our baby.
Our first stop was Iran. We walked for 16 days to get to one city where we had family. My mother was with us. After three months there, I realised there was nothing for me and my family in that country. I could not work or go to school. Life was difficult.
And so, we left for Turkey. Mother stayed, while we continued with another family. Today, I hope one day I will no longer remember Turkey, and what happened to us there, and to me.
We had to stay for six months, living in a place where smugglers held us. Men and women were separated, even from our husbands. Smugglers were living in the same house. I was in the room with around 14 other women and our children.
One day, a smuggler took me and baby out, separating us from the others. They told me that if I said a word to my husband about what was going to happen, he would kill us all. And they raped me. In the front of my baby, who was crying the whole time.
But, we had to stay there. Our goal was to reach Greece, and the EU. It took us nine attempts by sea. And, finally we reached Lesvos, the EU.
A window of hope had opened again in my life. We were happy, finally in the EU, finally safe. Or so we hoped.
The next thing, we went to Moria camp and applied for asylum. But, we were rejected after one and a half years of waiting and staying inside the camp. For me, it was an extremely difficult time. At some point, I could not go on like that, and I tried to kill myself. They saved me. Then I tried again. And they saved me again.
After a year and a half, and two suicide attempts, we found our way to Athens, the mainland, but decided to continue immediately towards some other EU country. To get there, we have to go through Albania, Montenegro and Bosnia. Walking all the way.
After many pushbacks from Albania, we finally found our way and reached Bosnia. The next step was Croatia. We immediately went to the border and started ‘the game’ (the attempt to cross the border in an irregular way is referred to in this way), trying and trying to cross. Over 20 times between September and February.
Once, we managed to cross the river between the countries. We were all wet, our shoes and clothes. Even the children were soaked. Police found us, and pushed us back to Bosnia. It was very cold weather, the middle of the night. Regardless of all that, they sent us back.
Next time we tried through the woods. Many people try this way. On our way, while walking for days, we met other people, but also children who got lost and separated from their families, and stayed alone in the forest. Two of them we found and took them with us.
Again, police found us and stopped us. One of them pushed me on the ground and started pulling and pushing me around. I could feel thorns on my body while they pulled me. At some point, I lost consciousness due to exhaustion. Later, my husband told me that policemen spilled alcohol on my face.
They were all drunk. They kicked me and laughed out loud. They sprayed pepper spray on my face. Then they tried to make my husband lift me from the ground, but he could not. I could not move, but they did not pay any attention.
After some time, two policemen picked me up from the ground and threw me in a car. It was midnight when we were pushed back to Bosnia. My whole face was burning. I could not open my eyes. My husband lit a fire and took a stick so we could walk through the forest to reach the village and some safe place. This was not the first time to be pushed back from Croatia, but I remember that time very well.
The police in Croatia also took our mobile phones and power bank. They were laughing all the time. We did not even have the right to protest and ask for what was ours.
Once we tried together with a big group. It was December, and we all decided to go to the border with Croatia and demand to pass. In the group there were families with sick children, pregnant women, old people… All of us tired, standing in the cold weather, under the snow, and far from humanity.
Nobody listened. Not only they did not listen, but soon they sent more policemen and made a barrier in front of us. And we had to go back. All our efforts turned out to be in vain, and the situation got worse after that.
We did not want to stay in camps in this country. They are very bad and the conditions are not fit for living inside. It is unbearable. People who are running camps do not pay attention to what we are saying. There is no hot water, rooms are dirty, blankets are dirty. If we asked for something, they used to say, ‘go outside the camp, sleep on the street if you do not like it here.”
Finally, in February, Zahra and her family reached the capital of Croatia and for the first time, were allowed to ask for asylum. They are again in the camp, and not sure what is going to happen to them. Just a few families from the group that they came with made it to Zagreb so far. Others are still stuck in the village near the border of the EU, on the Bosnian side, getting ready for another round of ‘the game’. Local people are helping them. Occasionally, they have problems with local criminal groups. But, they do not give up.
Over the last three years, since 2018, more than 70,000 people entered Bosnia in their attempt to continue toward the Northern European countries. In 2018, when the country became an active part of the Balkan route, there were no centres or any facilities to accept people who were coming. Politicians in Bosnia until today show no intention to deal with the issue.
Back in the Summer of 2018, the EU decided to assist Bosnia in “managing migration”. Since then, they have donated around 100 million euros, but all the money has gone to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and their partners, other international organisations, in the field. IOM and others are running eight “temporary reception centres”, but none of them – according to residents and human rights groups – has even basic living conditions. Nevertheless, huge numbers of people decide to stay outside of these centres, like Zahra, and families from Afghanistan who came to Bosnia from Lesvos.
Between EU-fortified borders, life is extremely difficult, especially for women. They are often invisible and, as such, easy targets for anybody. Closed borders, and violence from border guards, are life threatening to all of those who dare to confront these obstacles, as is to believe that all people are equal, and have the same rights, including freedom of movement, and right to life.
Afghanistan remains one of the most dangerous countries in the world, especially for women. Yet, most of the EU member countries consider it safe to live there, and often they reject asylum claims of people who run away from the horrors of war and terrorism.
(Due to the fact that Zahra is still traveling with her family, we are not publishing her full name or picture, to be sure that it will not make her journey and encounters with the authorities in various countries even more difficult.)
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