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AHMAD AL-RASHID, A 26-year-old from Aleppo living in Buckinghamshire, is one of 5,000 Syrian refugees who have settled in the UK since being displaced by the on-going civil war.
In September 2015, then Prime Minister David Cameron pledged that Britain would “live up to its moral responsibility” and take 20,000 more Syrian refugees from camps on the borders of Syria by 2020.
However, a Home Affairs Committee report released on 4 August 2016 said that it is “unlikely” that Britain will meet this target. Between September 2015 and March 2016, only 1,602 Syrian refugees have been resettled, according to the report.
Al-Rashid is not included in this number as he arrived in the UK illegally in July 2015, on the back of a lorry at the end of a gruelling 55-day journey from Aleppo to Hull.
Business Insider spoke to Al-Rashid about what it’s like to be part of Britain’s tiny community of Syrian refugees.
Before the war in Syria, Al-Rashid was an English Literature student at the University of Aleppo.
“Life was quite peaceful,” he told Business Insider. “I was a young man enjoying university, life, music, and cinemas.”
But when the war began in 2011, Al-Rashid’s Kurdish identity left him in particular danger. He was at the mercy of government forces, who accused him of being a PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) supporter, and Islamist radicals, who labelled him an infidel.
Al-Rashid campaigned by giving talks against “human rights abuses on both sides”. Friends warned him that this activity made him likely to be attacked. Al-Rashid decided that he had to leave Syria, and his wife and two daughters, in May 2015.
“It was a very difficult decision to take,” he said.
I was already separated from my family because of the conflict. I was on the other side of the country.
Al-Rashid began his journey out of Syria by crossing the Tigris river into Turkey. The border was guarded by the Turkish army, who shone bright lights on the river. People smugglers bribed the Turkish soldiers to turn off these lights for 10 minutes at midnight, allowing a small number of Syrians to successfully cross the border.
To cross the river, Al-Rashid shared a small dinghy with six other refugees. They made it to the Turkish side in seven minutes – just in time to get across before the lights went back on. No one approached them on arrival, and they entered Turkey unquestioned.
Now out of the war zone, Al-Rashid felt a small sense of relief. He travelled to the west coast of Turkey and, choosing one of hundreds of traffickers advertising on Facebook, paid for a seat on a boat to Kos, an island in Greece. He was told that there would be 24 passengers, but when he arrived there were 88.
“Before we set off, it was already leaking,” he said.
We were in the middle of the sea. Half of us were women and children. We got so lucky.
Three hours later, everyone on the dinghy arrived safely in Kos.
“You have to put your faith in smugglers because you don’t have an option,” Al-Rashid explained. “You already know he’s a liar and a criminal, but you just hope that he will be a good person. Plenty of them are bad people.”
From Kos, he boarded a ferry to mainland Greece and then travelled to Athens using money transferred to him by one of his brothers who was still living in Syria. Al-Rashid never carried large quantities of cash during the journey because he was afraid of being robbed. He said he was able to travel around easily within Greece.
In Athens, he bought a fake Bulgarian passport for €4,000 from a “well-known” smuggler, who had queues of refugees stretching outside his office door. When it was Al-Rashid’s turn, the smuggler told him to change his clothes and shave. The smuggler then booked Al-Rashid a plane ticket to Marseille using the fake details.
He made it through passport control smoothly, but while he was waiting in the airport departure lounge, two security officers began double-checking certain passengers’ passports.
“They managed to catch four Syrians,” he said. Al-Rashid said that he could distinguish fellow Syrians just by looking at their faces. Not long after the four refugees had been escorted away, Al-Rashid was approached. “Show me your passport,” a guard said.
Al-Rashid offered his fake document. “I am meeting my girlfriend in France,” he said. “We are celebrating our anniversary. Is there any problem?”
Fortunately, the guard bought his story and wished him “good luck.” As soon as Al-Rashid boarded the plane, he went to the toilet and destroyed his fake passport. The smuggler in Athens told him to do this because if he was found with a fake passport at French passport control, he would likely be deported back to Greece.
However, to Al-Rashid’s great surprise, when he arrived at the airport in Marseille, there was no passport control at all. He was allowed to walk straight through. He was pleased, but regretted discarding the Bulgarian passport so quickly.
Because he speaks English, Al-Rashid had always planned to claim asylum in the UK. Britain’s family reunion rules would also allow him to bring his family over, if he made it. He was only sporadically in contact with his wife and two daughters because internet and phone signal is hard to find in Aleppo.
To get to the UK meant travelling north by train to France’s then largest migrant camp: the Calais Jungle, which has since been demolished. Since the signing of the Touquet agreement in 2003, Brits have been conducting border control checks in France. With a large number of migrants unable to pass through the Calais border, thousands settled in the Jungle, hoping to climb onto the back of lorries, or walk through the Channel Tunnel to enter the UK.
“These were the worst days of my life,” Al-Rashid said of his two weeks in the Calais Jungle. “It was an awful place. I spent everyday chasing cars, lorries, and trucks.”
Two weeks after arriving in Calais, one of many smugglers in the town convinced Al-Rashid to climb into a tanker truck full of flour, with seven other refugees.
After 12 hours, Al-Rashid and the others inside began to suffocate, so they started furiously pounding on the side of the truck. On hearing the noise, the driver – who had no idea that there were refugees inside – stopped to let them out.
“To our surprise, we were near the Italian border,” he said. “I was mad as hell. I went back to Calais covered in flour.” He travelled by train back to Calais, though he didn’t stay long there.
Fed up with life in the French port town, Al-Rashid took a train to Brussels. From there he boarded another train to Stuttgart, where one of his brothers lives. In Stuttgart, he snuck into the back of yet another lorry, while its driver had left it unattended. He spent four nights inside the dark, cramped vehicle. Uncertain of the lorry’s destination, he expected it to end up in Sweden or Denmark.
When he got out of the lorry, remarkably, he found that he had travelled by ferry to Hull, in northern England.
Soon after, Al-Rashid approached a police officer, who began questioning him. After explaining his situation to the officer, he was taken to the police station for further questioning.
“Everyone comes from Dover,” the police said. “How on earth did you end up here?”
Al-Rashid told them the truth. Then, the process of applying for asylum in the UK began.
To become a refugee in the UK, a foreign national has to prove that they are unable to return to their home country because they “fear persecution.” As a Kurd from Aleppo, Al-Rashid’s case was clear. He was granted asylum in the UK in November 2015.
But Al-Rashid was not entitled to free accommodation from the UK government because he was no longer an asylum seeker.
“At that point I didn’t have a National Insurance number, or any money to pay a deposit,” he said.
Fortunately, he found temporary accomodation through Refugees at Home, a small charity that links homeless refugees with volunteer host families who have a spare room. He was contacted by the charity after sharing a Facebook post about needing a place to live, and was put in touch with hosts Timothy and Nina, staying in their home in Epsom, Surrey, for four months.
The day after Al-Rashid moved into Timothy and Nina’s house, on 28 November 2015, his message of thanks for the couple’s “hospitality and care” went viral on Facebook.
In March 2016, less than a year after he left Syria, Al-Rashid’s wife and two daughters were allowed to legally travel to the UK. The UK’s family reunion settlement rules allow partners and children separated from refugees living in the country to obtain residence as well. The family of four now lives together in an apartment in Buckinghamshire.
In September, Al-Rashid will take up a scholarship to study a masters degree in Violence, Conflict, and Development at SOAS University in London. He hopes the degree will give him the knowledge and expertise to help Syria’s redevelopment, once the war is over.
Though he says he has been treated well by British people, he has experienced less generous attitudes on the internet.
“I spend a lot of time online, arguing with people [commenting] on the Daily Mail and The Telegraph,” he said, where people post things like: “‘Bomb these countries, bomb migrants’ dinghies, rape them, don’t let them come to this country, they are taking over this country.’”
Al-Rashid thinks this is “ridiculous”, since “the UK has got the smallest proportion of refugees in comparison to Germany or Turkey, or Lebanon”, where he said “over 30% of the population” is made up of refugees.
Al-Rashid believes that the reason Britain is not accepting more refugees is because “the country is in political chaos.”
As a result, refugees are suffering. The UK is the fifth greatest, wealthiest nation on earth. It’s a permanent member of the security council and the UN, and yet you are refusing to take the lead.
We’ve got these young people coming. Let’s invest in them, teach them, educate them, so they can help themselves and go back and help Syria. Let’s turn immigration into something positive.
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I think that the minute the UK are officially out of the EU then the French will open the borders at Calais and let the UK deal with the illegal immigrants in Dover. Interesting times are ahead.
…or Roslare!!!!
Ireland is still in the EU, Michael.
Surely being the last country in Europe with English as our primary language is going to be a benefit to us?
That would be the silver lining; movement of financial services to Dublin. It all depends on how things are unravel. The U.K. may yet just replace eu law with their written law of the same substance, meaning that there wouldn’t be any changes etc for foreign companies etc.
You can’t be bombarding your country with immigrants you can’t afford, demanding wars your people want no part of, forcing theough laws that don’t benefit the people and doing it all with all with a healthy condescending disrespect for that countrirs citzens. Thank God the Brits didn’t swallow the media’s scaremongering, believe its biased polls or were in anyway shape or form influenced by eejits like Enda Kenny and other EU pimps. The UK told the EU to go fk itself and it is just sooo beautiful. They will have no choice now but to listen to her citizens, reform its Orwellian bureaucratic conditions, etc. Maybe this is the stepping stone needed for our very own exit. Interesting times ahead.
Not to worry, ask them to vote again. I don’t think they really meant it.
Like to see the EU try that over there, Cameron would be pulled from number 10 and beaten in the streets if they tried it. Amazing result but there is a losing bonus point for the remain side with there being no reason for UKIP to exist after it is fully implemented.
Enda off to the states to canvass for Clinton !!!!!
End a said there were 1.2 billion Irish living in the UK. If only they had listened to him
Give her a Hurley. Be grand.
Cameron is f********cked…. Watch him resign over this.
I think he was resigning anyway. But opposition and Boris had asked him to stay on
Borris wants him to stay believe it or not. Kinda like saying “here’s a bed of knives I’m made, would you mind sleeping in it?”
Cameron has just resigned. Hardly a surprise.
Seems likely that Corbyn will leave too. Core labour areas voting leave suggests he wasn’t getting through. He was very absent throughout…
Fair play to them, all this cowardice and hyperbole is manure.
It behooves the EU and Britain to hammer out a good deal that avoids any major ructions as Britain is simply too big an ecenomy for Brussels to play hard ball on their own doorstep.
Watch the fear campaign turn out to be just that.
The British have shown the courage to set their own future, they will be laughing at us this time in 10 years.
The knock on effect of other countries wanting to leave will be huge. If this happens, the euro will collapse and the sterling won’t be as weak as people think. May be a wise move from Britain to get out before the whole euro falls apart.
All ready calls in France and Holland for referendums on exiting.
If you take the second(Britain) and a possibility of the third(France) strongest economies out of EU, then you’ve got a fairly shakey union.
On the flip side the import/export business for the bigger economies in the EU could get a massive boost
Trevor – Britain isn’t in the Euro. The Euro has gained massively against sterling this morning.
Never said they were Brinster. My point being that if you take an economy/contributor like Britain out of the union, it makes it less stable. The gains this morning are just a knee jerk reaction. When this settles the markets will react, and already the strerling/euro is trading about .81, which isn’t the plumet they were expecting.
Goodbye EU, Hello IMF.
Well the result is not a surprise. Back in the day my parents voted to join the EEC I do wonder if they would have voted yes to the EU.
Wait 1 year. After that no nation will ever think about leaving again. While many may think that the EU is bad, its the complete opposite. If you saw Europe before the EU you would know. Ireland being a prime example. We were a ‘developing’ nation before we joined the EU and look at us now! A large part of that is due to the EU, in forms of trade, funding and an influx of trained professionals.
If you try to say we owe the banks money then that is our own politicians fault, not the EUs (as they were the ones who caused the mess). But the EU gave us a loan to bail out our mistakes at an intrest rate of less than that of inflation, meaning we pay back less than we borrow. While the bailout was terrible, the other option was to close the banks and everyones savings would have disappeared and debts be sold off. (Look at history if thats something you dont believe)
The EU makes trade so easy, something that will drastically affect Britain now that they are out. We will see their exports and imports drop immensly over the next few months. And more importantly, we will see all major companies who have EU headquarters in Britain relocate to Ireland, making an immense boost to our income and employment.
So in terms of Ireland, Brexit is a plus for us!
Could they not set up their own union consisting of members and previous members of the commonwealth such as ourselves , India , Australia? Canada and Australia seem to do fine on their own, why couldn’t UK do the same? They’ve taken back total control of their country , I say fair play. Would love to see Ireland have the balls to do the same!!
I completely agree, but I think our exports to the UK expose a lot of Irish businesses.
Now? Boris at No. 10 and Gove next door.
Looks like Cameron has a mullet in that photo!!!!!
I was 50/50 on Brexit. I must say i am quite pleased they voted to exit. Fair play to the Brits. Brave move….. Interesting times ahead
I haven’t forgotten this. Delighted https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/nov/06/greece-george-papandreou
How can one be 50/50 on Brexit and be happy then with Brexit.
BRITS OUT ! ! !
the EU started without Britain, and will be able to continue without. in fact it is likely that GB will fall apart over thi, should Scotland decide to go their own way. at last, we can make decisions I Europe, without having to come up with special treatment for GB any longer.
2 years…. Ah jeasus what’s all the fuss about so
Newstalk and the Irish Media had been pushing “the remain” vote anyone who disagreed was a racist!
Im glad the UK citizens have given the political class the two fingers.
The Irish gov holding an emergency meeting at 10. What’s the number one topic to discuss, the value of pensions!!!!! Unbelievable!
Listening to Yates flipping out on newstalk, calling it a vote for ignorance, because his political pension took a hit!
Listen they tried this with religion when they didn’t get their own way, that worked out fairly rubbish in the grand scheme of the world, but they still seem happy with it. Idiots! Won’t have to worry about foreigners coming in taking their jobs now, their won’t be any and if there are the locals will be too dumb to do them if this is the way they voted! Bit shocked waking up to that.
I never took a side in this one. It didn’t seem to have the vicious rivalry that normally comes out of these things but then again I didn’t pay much attention. Will be interesting to see if it’s the start of a domino set.
The English in these present times have shown they carry larger balls than than our own “conservative politicians and voting public”. I never thought I would admit to this. Doubt there will be much change here. A few more cars and housing appliances on H.P. should keep the ball rolling for the pseudo well off after all one should never leave the side down should one? I heard lately from a reliable source that the owners of a house in an upmarket part of Cork exclaimed to a bank manager to take the house and they would remain as tenants. Here’s the crutch they also asked to be left with the mark 1 Mercedes and the SUV on the drive as status emblems presumably. This country seems to have been embellished by a materialistic trance. A case of eyes wide shut for the coming times? Our government’s has vehemently lied time over time through back hand deeds etc. It seems we are left with nation that has not got the balls to upset the status quo, whatever be the weather.
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