Sulieman last saw his wife Tamanna, a teacher also from Afghanistan, two months ago on the boat from Turkey to Lesbos, moments before it broke apart underneath them. She was pregnant with their first child.
After trying twice to cross the Turkish border with Bulgaria, and getting arrested each time, they had wanted to go home, but having sold all their possessions and nearly bankrupted themselves to pay the smugglers, they had no choice but to continue. The smugglers had told them the land crossing would be easy and, after that failed, they promised the journey across the water would be in a ferry.
In the end, over forty of them were packed into a small and decaying fishing boat. As the boat pushed off, the smuggler jumped out of the boat and waded back to the shore, leaving the refugees to fend for themselves at night in the choppy water.
After an hour they realised they were lost and, with waves coming over the bow, they tried to turn the boat. It split apart and plunged them into the water beneath. Sulieman was separated from his family in the chaos and, after three hours, he was rescued along with some other members of his extended family. He identified the bodies of his wife’s father, mother and sister at the morgue the next day. His wife is still missing and he hopes she might be amongst the 11 people that he heard were rescued and taken to Greece, but he is stuck in Turkey and he can’t find her.
Also on the boat was Mujtaba, whose wife and two small children are also missing. 23 people on the boat survived and 12 died that night. The whereabouts of the rest are unknown.
Whilst the conditions for refugees travelling between Lesbos and Germany might have improved, the boat journey from Turkey to Greece continues to be deadly. The boats are weak and normally heavily overcrowded, usually piloted by one of the refugees themselves. The boats we saw on Lesbos were all shallow inflatable rafts rather than boats. They are forced to pay criminal smugglers hundreds, sometimes thousands, of euros each to take the journey. Their possessions, often all that remains of their family history, are routinely thrown overboard. Many of the lifejackets are reportedly fake. Drowning and hypothermia remain serious risks, especially for the many young children who take the crossing.
Turkey has a land border with Greece, and also an airport. Regular ferries do the journey safely every day. All of these options are barred to refugees however. This unnecessary Russian roulette is both shameful and unnecessary. All of us in Europe need to take a stand and insist that a humane alternative be provided to these families that are fleeing from violence back home.
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