My name is Reza, and I am twenty-five years old. Ten years ago, at fifteen, I left my homeland of Afghanistan all by myself and haven't seen my family since.
I grew up in a small village of about twenty houses in Maidan Wardak, a province southwest of Kabul. My family wasn't badly off financially. My father worked for the government and also owned a car dealership with a few employees. Like almost everyone else in the village, we had a few animals: two cows and five or six chickens.
I have five siblings: three sisters and two brothers. I am the oldest.
In the village, there was only one tent school, which I attended for eight years. There weren't many opportunities there, and I didn't graduate. But at least I learned a little English for two years, which was often very useful to me. After school, we usually had to go to the mosque.
Our life wasn't bad, but Wardak is a province where many ethnic groups live together, which often leads to conflict. Our family belongs to the Hazara, an ethnic group that has always been subjected to persecution and discrimination. As early as the 19th century, many were killed by the Pashtuns, and then in our time by the radical Islamist terrorist groups of the Taliban and ISIS.
In our village, we suffered attacks by the Kuchis, a largely Pashtun, nomadic ethnic group who frequently raided our village, took animals, and terrorized us. When they finally killed two of our neighbors, my father decided something had to be done. He sent my mother and us children to his brother-in-law in Gazni. After we had been there for a few weeks, he decided I was old enough to leave the country completely. Together with my uncle, he organized my escape.
I can't remember much, and I didn't understand much because I was still too young. A man drove me to Kabul, this city that seemed so incredibly large to me, and which I was seeing for the first time. At the airport, he gave me my passport and a photo of the man who would pick me up, and then he put me on a plane to Turkey. The man in the photo was actually already waiting for me with my name tag. I stayed with him in his house for two or three weeks, then in the middle of the night—it must have been around 1 a.m.—he took me to a bus that took me to the seaside along with about 35 other people. At around 6 or 7 a.m., they put us in a rubber dinghy and asked if anyone could steer the boat. One of the men actually volunteered, and off we went. Four families with small children were also on board.
As I later learned, the time for the crossing had been deliberately chosen. It was Eid, the festival of breaking the fast, because the police would also be celebrating on that day.
We were packed tightly in the boat, but the crossing was relatively unproblematic. When we were close to the coast, however, one of the men, who knew how things should be done, made a hole in the rubber boat so the Greek police couldn't send us back.
Police officers did indeed arrive. Despite the broken boat, they didn't let us disembark. We were stuck there for five or six hours, dealing with the leak, sealing the hole, and constantly bail out water from the boat. The children cried, even one of the men. Luckily, we were all wearing life jackets, because some fell into the water.
Then finally, a large boat arrived, took us all aboard, and dropped us off on an island—I don't remember the name. We were taken to a camp, I think it was run by UNICEF, where they first took our fingerprints. After about a month, I received a paper instructing me to leave the country within three days.
I still had money from the man who had taken me to the airport in Kabul, about 300 euros. With that, I was able to pay for a ferry crossing for 50 euros and made it to Athens.
There was a park there where many refugees always met; I think it was called Alexander Park. I called my uncle, and he gave me the phone number of a contact person and sent me money.
After two or three days, I continued on to Macedonia, from there to Serbia, where I ended up in another camp and received a paper stating that I had to leave the country after 30 days at the latest.
So I continued on to Hungary, specifically to Budapest. There I remember another park where many foreigners also met. And I also called my uncle again. He said I had to go to Sweden.
But I had met an Afghan family who really wanted to go to Germany, and they wanted me to go with them because they couldn't communicate, even though I spoke English.
We then drove to Munich in a large car, I think it was a Mercedes, for 500 euros for all of us. There I stayed for a few days in a park where homeless people also stayed. It was August by then, and sleeping outside was quite comfortable. But I also wanted to go further to Sweden. So I went to the train station to check the connections.
I looked at the display boards and had no idea where I was supposed to go. Then a hand placed itself on my shoulder from behind. I was startled, turned around, and behind me stood two police officers, a man and a woman. They asked me in English where I wanted to go. I said Sweden. They recommended a connection to Malmö, which I took without further question.
When I got off in Malmö, I bought some croissants and asked the seller how to get to Sweden. He looked at me rather strangely, and I finally figured out that Sweden isn't a city at all, but a country.
By chance, I met an Afghan man who took me in and explained that I had to register with the immigration authorities. So I went to Stockholm, where I had an interview that lasted about half an hour. The woman was very nice and asked me if I preferred it cold or warm, and if I wanted to go north or south.
I then arrived in a camp in Östersund. It was actually one floor in an otherwise perfectly normal apartment building. We lived there with 12 young people and the rotating staff in a shared living space. Everyone had a single room, and the rest were shared rooms. We even had a pool table. Besides me, there were two girls from somewhere in Africa, three Syrians, one Iranian, and the rest were also Afghans. That was okay. I stayed there for three years, until I was eighteen. Then I got my own apartment, but of course, I still had contact with my supervisors.
After arriving in Sweden, I first went to a course for three months where I only learned the local language, then spent the rest of the school year in eighth grade at a regular school. After the summer break, I continued with ninth grade. I worked very hard, even at home, and was lucky enough to meet a girl I became friends with. She and her parents were very supportive. I made it to high school and graduated in 2020. I also worked part-time at a supermarket.
I planned to study civil engineering, but first I wanted to work for a year or two to earn some money. That's what many high school graduates in Sweden do.
So, I continued working at the supermarket and also at a hospital, where I helped out in the kitchen and with cleaning. I didn't do the latter for very long, though.
Everything could have been fine if only there hadn't been problems with my asylum application. I submitted it in 2015 and then had to wait three years for a decision. Apparently, because there were so few staff to process it. And then some of my father's documents were missing, and the application was rejected. My lawyer appealed the negative decision, and because I did well in school, I was allowed to stay until I graduated from high school.
After that, my lawyer applied for an extension of my residence permit. This went through all the courts, but in October 2022, I received a decision from the highest migration authority that I was to be deported. However, since the Taliban had since taken power in Afghanistan, there were no deportations for the time being.
Nevertheless, my lawyer said that my status was very precarious, with no papers and no rights. He advised me to try Germany, because Germany had just promised to take in many Afghans at risk because of the Taliban. My chances in Germany were probably better. So I decided to give it a try.
On May 15, 2023, I landed in Berlin, registered with the authorities, and applied for asylum. From there, I was sent to Augsburg. I was taken to what was known as Camp 16, received an ID card, and then, after three days, I was transferred to another camp, where I stayed for about two months. From there, I moved to Inningen, and after a month, I was transferred back to the accommodation where I still live today.
On October 17, I was allowed to start an integration course. My joy about this didn't last long, however. I was already registered in Sweden, and because of the Dublin Agreement, I was supposed to be deported back there after two months.
At 4:00 a.m., six police officers came to the home to take me away. Four more were even standing outside the door. They told me: "Pack your things, you have to go back to Sweden."
I said goodbye to my roommate, a Ukrainian, and then we drove to Munich. There, I stayed in a house with only two or three rooms. The rooms had rather thin walls, and I heard another man from Afghanistan crying in the next room and begging, "Please, please don't send me back to Belarus!"
I was actually still okay with being deported to Sweden.
My plane was scheduled to take off at 10:30 a.m., but I had severe back pain and problems with my shoulder and asked to see a doctor beforehand.
I should explain that I had a skiing accident in Sweden in 2017. We went on a ski trip with school at the time. I fell, broke my collarbone and another bone in my shoulder area, and had to undergo surgery, a rather complicated procedure, and the scars will probably last a lifetime. In addition, the pain keeps coming back, and since then, I've also been suffering from lumbago when certain types of stress occur, which is sudden, severe pain in the lower back that can lead to inability to move.
Of course, I couldn't tell the police officers, but the lumbago was actually caused by their reckless driving. They were driving much too fast over a traffic calming barrier, so we were smashed pretty hard in the car.
The older police officer I asked to see the doctor said, "Don't make a fuss. You can't fool me. Are you going to fly to Sweden?"
And I said, "Yes, I'm going to Sweden, but I need a doctor first."
Then I showed him my shoulder. After he saw the surgical scars, he said, "Okay, you can see the doctor, but then you're going to Sweden."
The doctor gave me painkillers and promised me they would work quickly and that the back pain would be gone in half an hour. But they didn't.
The officers put me on the plane anyway.
I told them, "I'm in so much pain, I can't sit down. I'm flying to Sweden, but I can only do it standing or lying down."
The pilot then intervened and said, "That's absolutely impossible. If he can't sit down, you'll have to take him out again; I won't take him with you!"
So the officers took me out again and told me to go back to the shelter.
I asked them if they wouldn't take me there. After all, they had picked me up too, and I wasn't feeling well. But they just took me to the subway and said, "See how you manage!"
I went back to the shelter, but I knew I couldn't stay there because they would try again. During my brief stay in Berlin, I had met someone from the church. I contacted this person, and she helped me go into hiding in Berlin until the deadline for deporting me to Sweden, which was responsible for me, had expired under the Dublin procedure.
Afterward, my lawyer applied for a new asylum procedure through the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF). After my hearing, I was allowed to attend an integration course again, was able to pick up practically where I left off, and was even lucky enough to end up with the same teacher again.
Besides learning German, I also worked hard, earned money, and made some good contacts. I wanted to move out of the shelter, found an apartment I could have financed myself, and already had the rental agreement in hand, but the district office told me that as an asylum seeker, you weren't allowed to move out of the refugee accommodation.
In April, the negative decision came. My asylum application was rejected. My lawyer immediately filed an appeal, and it was granted because the rejection didn't contain any valid reasons, and the situation in Afghanistan had changed fundamentally.
It's completely unimaginable for me to live there again. I left when I was fifteen and have hardly any contact with my family anymore. My father and one of my brothers died of COVID-19. I still send my mother money sometimes, but unfortunately, our relationship isn't very close anymore.
My relationship with my girlfriend's family in Sweden, on the other hand, is very good. She recently visited me, and we're getting married. But first, she wants to finish her studies. And we still have a lot of paperwork to get, and we don't yet know how and where we can and should live. Her mother is from Scotland. Maybe we could even move there, since we both speak English, and then she wouldn't have to learn German as well. But that's still a long way off. We'll manage somehow.
For me, other things are also more important right now: I was lucky enough to find an apprenticeship as an electrician. And because my apprenticeship starts at the beginning of September, but my integration course doesn't end until October, I was allowed to take the DTZ exam early. My teacher thought I had a good chance of getting the B1 certificate sooner, and I didn't disappoint him. I've always been a good and quick learner, and I also know how to do it on my own.
Regarding my shoulder and back problems, an orthopedist has now prescribed a device that provides me with some relief when the pain returns.
But I'm still waiting for my asylum decision and hope I can finally get some rest. Because since I left my homeland in Afghanistan ten years ago, I've been constantly hanging in the balance. It's not a pleasant situation.
Thank you Reza for having the courage to tell this story here!