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NameBoutros
Gendermale
Country of OriginSyrian Arab Republic
Destination CountryGermany
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Boutros decided to leave Syria three years ago, when his hand and arm were shot inside his own house. He still doesnt know if the shots came from the Free Army, or from Assads forces. His family begged him to leave, so he had to pay traffickers 2,000 USD to reach the Turkish border from his village in southern Damascus. In Turkey he worked for almost 2 years to save enough to continue the journey. Then, he paid 1/3 of the regular price to traffickers to cross the Mediterranean, because he would be the one driving the boat. He had never driven a boat before. It was late at night and they told me, Do you see those lights there? Thats a Greek land, thats where you have to go. They arrived 4 hours later in Lesbos, Greece, and when he continued his journey he was arrested in Macedonia, Serbia and Croatia. In Macedonia Boutros, who is a Christian, spent a month in jail, but went free after paying a 200 USD bribe. The whole trip here cost me about 5,000 USD and with that money I could have bought a house, a car and get married in Syria. His phone was one of the most precious things he carried on his journey. Sometimes Europeans see that we have good phones and ask, Why does a refugee has a phone? These phones are like our visas. If we lose our phones, we lose our lives. Boutros has used his phone not only for communication, but also as a map. When the battery died in FYROM (Republic of Macedonia), just before the border with Serbia, he was lost for two days in the mountains without food or water until a shepherd helped him find the way. His mother and his 10 year old brother are still in Syria. Syria is now the land of the 3rd global war, and people only stay there because of three reasons. Either they do not have enough money to pay smugglers, they have a relatives fighting in one of the armies, or they are too old. Two of his uncles are combatants, one for Assads army and the other for the Free Army. I like Berlin because it is like Damascus was in the past, with lots of people on the streets, lots of restaurants, and universities. When people ask me why I left Syria, I just want to forget everything. So I just tell them that I like Berlin, that want I to live here, and I ask them whats the problem with that?

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