A refugee's story

One of my flatmates, Mees, volunteers at a refugee center in Rotterdam. I've heard many stories about refugees second hand from him, but until recently I hadn't heard a first hand account of what it's like to be Syrian refugee crossing into Europe. This is a story told to me in a bar by Mohammad, a Syrian refugee and civil Engineer, who spent about a year trying to make it into Western Europe.

1) He did not travel with his family. He made the journey by himself to cross the boarder into Turkey. He found smugglers who were willing to show weak points in the boarder where there was either no wall, or a very easily climbable wall. He made large parts of the journey by car, but near the boarder he had to walk for long distances and hide behind bushes whenever he would see Turkish boarder patrol. 

2) On his first attempt, he got caught by the police crossing the boarder into Turkey. Since he was not a smuggler there was no punishment or fine. The Turkish police simply put all the refugees in a bus and dropped them back on the Syrian side of the boarder.

3) He then tried crossing again (duh) and succeeded without getting caught. He got a lift all the way to Istanbul and stayed there for several months. He didn't like it there because there was no work and a large anti-Syrian aura about the city. 

4) He then decided to make the crossing into Greece. He hired a smuggler to personally escort him and a friend into Athens. Along the Greece boarder, an undercover cop tried to pull them over. The smuggler knew that if he got caught he would have to face 10+ years in jail, so left the car running in neutral and barrel rolled out of the car and into the nearby bushes. The police didn't chase the smuggler and instead tried to stop the moving car with Mohammad and his friend inside. Amazingly, since Mohammad had already crossed the boarder, they took him to Athens instead of dropping him back in Turkey. 

5) Mohammad described Athens as city destroyed by drug addiction and vacant homes everywhere. He was keen to get out to another part of Western Europe. He payed someone to create a fake passport for him so he could fly to a country in Western Europe. After being rejected on 9 separate occasions at the airport with 9 fake passports, one of his fake Dutch passports finally fooled immigration. 

6) On arrival in Amsterdam, Mohammad immediately went to the police station and honestly admitted he was an illegal immigrant with a fake Dutch passport. Rather than deport him, they took his passport and sent him to the refugee center in Rotterdam where he gets free housing, and learns Dutch culture.