Real life stories

My name is M. I was born in Syria and I grew up there with my family but then we all left. It was a very difficult decision to leave Syria.

My family fled because of the war in which my parents had already died in 2013, when their house was bombed. My business that I owned with my older brother was destroyed by the bombs.

We took the decision to leave and start the difficult journey to a new life.

When I saw the knife threatening me and my family to enter the already overloaded inflatable boat, I feared that I had made the biggest mistake of my life.

It was then that I realised that the traffickers had lied to me and my family. They had told me there would only be 35 people on the boat. When we saw more than 60 people in the boat, we refused to get in.

I don’t want to remember that night. We got lucky and some people rescued us. We are now trying to live a normal life and built our lives from the start.