Sam and Sim: Unusual Under Normal Circumstances

Kandahar, Afghanistan

From Kabul, we traveled for 24 hours by bus, passing through Kandahar. We were very afraid because we heard that Daesh [ISIS] stops buses along the way looking for Shias passing through.

Pakistan

We spent two nights in a border town, and then we made the journey across the border into Pakistan. This took about 28 hours, and we traveled sometimes by car and other times by foot. There were about eight families traveling all together, along with 13–14 single men. When we were in Pakistan, we were sometimes followed by the police, but once we reached the smugglers’ safehouses, the police no longer bothered us.

Zahedan, Iran

After spending the night, we departed at 8 a.m. to make the journey into Iran. This was a 13-hour trip, once again both by car and on foot through desert. When we were in cars, we traveled in the back of large, open top vehicles—every inch was packed, carrying 70–80 people. The young men sat around the perimeter of the vehicles, holding on for dear life, and the women and children sat towards the middle, clutching each other. The men sitting at the perimeter sometimes fall out of the vehicle and are left behind in the desert. We arrived across the border to Iran by 9 p.m. and slept in the desert that night.

The next day at noon, the group was split up into smaller groups, each group going with a different smuggler. Sedan-sized vehicles came to pick us up and take us to Zahedan, the capital of Sistan and Baluchistan province in southeast Iran. We arrived at a safe house in Zahedan and crammed seven families in a dirty room of about 18 square meters.

Bam, Iran

We departed the next morning at 5 a.m., this time heading towards Bam, Iran. We were in the same cramped setup in the car until we reached a desert area where the cars could no longer travel.

Kerman, Iran

The smugglers gave us an option to pay an additional $100 to fit three people on a motorcycle. While some families had enough money to agree to pay extra, our family did not, so we left some of our belongings that were too heavy to carry and walked for 30 hours. In the desert, we had no cell phone signal, plus the smugglers never allowed us to keep our phones on anyway to ensure there were no informants. This part of the journey was very difficult.

When we finally reached Kerman, the journey across Iran became easier as we once again traveled by vehicle.

Shiraz, Iran

We continued west towards Shiraz and stopped at Neyriz in Fars province. We were told to get out of the cars and wait under a bridge for different vehicles to come, along with dozens of other migrants. Within minutes of our arrival, the Iranian police came threatening arrest and started to beat the younger men. The smugglers spoke to the families and said that for an additional 1,500,000 ($35) rial per family, the police would let them go. We had no choice but to agree to this amount and it would be added to our overall fees. It was clear that the smugglers and the police had a deal, and this was only the beginning of many scenarios that allowed the smugglers to exploit us for more money.

Tehran, Iran

“From Shiraz, we traveled another fourteen hours north to Isfehan and eventually to Tehran. In Tehran we slept in small tents on the property of a house that was reserved for the smugglers themselves. We called this ‘tent city,’ because the smugglers were in the large house looking over all of us refugees. Tehran was the next point at which all of the refugees were required to pay the smugglers, but we had arrived on a weekend and the sarafs were closed, so we stayed there for two nights.

Urmia, Iran

On Saturday morning, the sarafs reopened—we all made the required payments and then departed at 8 a.m. towards Urmia, a city that is about 55 kilometers by road to the Turkish border. To get to Urmia, we were finally able to sit normally in a car, with my dad in the front with the driver and the rest of us in the back, but we sped through back roads to avoid the police stations and the driver told us to pray for our lives as we were moving too fast to feel safe.

We reached our destination in Urmia by 6 p.m. and rested there before heading towards the base of the mountains that would lead us to Turkey. After many hours of walking, we reached a point that was too steep for the horses, so all of the travelers, including my mother, started walking by foot, relying on the younger men to help drag us up (even if we were not blood-related, which would be unusual under normal circumstances). At the top of the mountain, the smugglers said that we had reached the Iranian-Turkish border and that they were not authorized to continue the journey into Turkey. Us travelers would have to walk down by ourselves and Uzbek Afghan smugglers that were based in Turkey would meet us on the other side. It had only been about ten minutes of walking downhill when we heard my father call out to inform the group that we had been caught by the Turkish police.

Turkish Border

The Turkish police gathered us together and had us wait under a cove, joining another group of migrants that they had caught earlier. Together there were about 70 of us. The police took us in two large vehicles to a nearby police outpost. It was 5 a.m. and the police had us each empty our personal belongings (money and cell phones) and sealed them in plastic bags labeled with our names. Soon, more police vehicles arrived to transfer us to another shelter. While we were finally in a sheltered area, there were many incidents throughout the night that kept us uneasy.

During the seven days that our group waited in this police shelter, the smugglers that were supposed to have met us on the other side of the mountain kept visiting the police outpost and bringing cases of food and alcohol to bribe the police. Since they do not receive their payment until a leg of the journey is completed, it was in their interest to make sure the travelers were released so we could make it to our next destination. At this point, a new set of actors became involved in the smuggling deal—the Turkish mafia. A group, led by a tall man with light hair and green eyes, paid the police to release each of the travelers. The mafia had basically ‘bought’ us travelers from the police, and the only way for us to continue the journey was for us to agree to pay an additional $300 per person through the smuggler to give to the mafia. This was in addition to the $750 per person it was already costing us to cross into Turkey.

Van, Turkey

The smugglers sent station wagons to transport us to the next destination, Van, in eastern Turkey, this time in groups of 14 per vehicle. We traveled for five hours and were in Van by midnight. In Turkey, we registered ourselves as refugees, but when we made the final payment to the smugglers, we asked them for a contact who would get us to Greece. We stayed overnight in Van with a family that was connected to the smuggling network and departed the next afternoon by bus to Istanbul. The bus tickets were paid by the smugglers (all part of the cost of operations).

Zeytoun Borno, Istanbul

We followed the smuggler’s instructions to take a taxi to Zaytoun Borno, an area of Istanbul where there are many smugglers. We met our smuggler and went to his house where we stayed for four days in his basement. The smuggler was Uzbek, as were all of the Turkey-based smugglers along the route we followed.

Izmir, Turkey

From Istanbul, we took an overnight bus to Izmir, arriving by 6 a.m. and waiting until noon for the next smuggler.

Çeşme, Turkey

Then we were transported from Izmir to Çeşme, a small town about an hour away that is only kilometers away from the Greek island of Chios. “We ate lunch and went to a grassy area on the shore where we were given life jackets and waited for the smugglers to blow up the rafts and insert wood panels for the passengers to sit. As we were waiting, Turkish police came and took all of the life jackets from the passengers, but left us alone. We went back to a wooded area near the shore and waited until 1 a.m. The smugglers told us we would make the journey to Chios but without life jackets. My family and the group of travelers with us refused and we were transported back to a hotel in Izmir.

On the second night, we were transported back to the shore and we crammed 75 people in the raft. We were only in the water for 15 minutes and could feel ourselves slowly sinking when we were caught by the Turkish coast guard and told to turn back. On our third attempt, we went to the wooded area near the shore at 6 p.m. and waited all night for the Turkish coast guard to stop patrolling the area. By 8 a.m. it was clear that we had missed the opportunity and the smugglers decided to change the embarkation point. We traveled by car to another location that was 30 minutes away. This location was further from Chios, whereas from the previous location we were able to see the Greek island.

At 8 p.m., the sea was too rough for us to make the journey so we slept outside waiting for the waves to subside. We finally set off the following night and after half an hour, the motor on our boat failed. The smugglers used pins that my sister and I had in our hair to fix the engine, and 30 minutes later we continued. Our raft got caught in a fishing net and at this point had holes and water filled the bottom—the documentation we were carrying was ruined. We finally reached Chios and cried out of happiness.

Chios, Greece

We registered as asylum seekers in Chios which would allow us to stay in Greece legally for a year. Two days later we purchased ferry tickets for $40 per person and went to Athens, from where we planned to continue our journey into Europe to join my brother.

Piraeus, Greece

When we got to Athens, we learned that the borders had been closed to migrants just days earlier. That’s when we set up camp in Piraeus. Now we do not have a plan—the plan all along was to wait for the borders to open and continue the journey. We were only in contact with my brother in Sweden twice, in Iran and in Turkey, and he didn’t send any money. Often volunteers and organizations bring food or supplies and ask refugees whether they are Syrian or Afghan, and only give the food to Syrians. We have seen some friends who have left if they have money to hire smugglers to get them out of Greece. Many young men go to Patra to get to Italy, where they have hopes of getting into France or Germany.

But we have no money left. The journey to Iran cost $1,000 each for the six of us, and overall the entire journey to Greece cost about $3,500 per person. Now that the Greeks are dismantling the Piraeus camp, we are getting ready to move to the camp in Oinofyta. We do not know what is next for us."