'We simply have no other choice'

An illegal immigrant tells Al-Ahram Weekly a story of fear and failure

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Dying to live The real victims

"What we saw was even worse than drowning," began Ibrahim Mohamed Amin, a 27- year-old worker with a vocational certificate. "Those who travel by sea either drown or make it to the shores. For us, we remained in a state of fear and uncertainty for six months on end."

Hailing from a poor family in the village of Samanoud in Gharbiya governorate, Amin could hardly find a stable job in his homeland. He first headed to the Gulf, but was forced to return after having little luck finding a permanent job with a good salary.

Back home, Amin remained jobless and was unable to get married. He could not dispel the idea of crossing the Mediterranean which separates the impoverished Delta where his village stands from a land of potential wealth and a better life that is called Europe. After all, many of his neighbours, friends and relatives had made it to Italy and are now having a much better life.

"Almost all the youths in our village had travelled," Amin insisted. "It's just that I had little luck."

Amin decided to take the risky trip to Greece. A friend of his living in Lebanon advised him to take the safer mode of travelling by land and gave him the contact of a Syrian human trafficker who he said was "very professional". "He said it was easy reaching there [Greece] and no one would stop us -- no risk involved," he told the Weekly. "So we agreed on paying a total of LE45,000 for the whole trip, a $2,000 deposit and the rest when I reach Greece."

Amin started his journey going to Libya by land, then took a plane to Syria where he was supposed to cross the borders to Turkey by land.

That, however, was not smooth sailing. Amin, who was now in the company of 15 other illegal immigrants [including 12 Egyptians], took a Jeep to the nearest point to the borders and from there the whole group were left to make their way along the high mountains separating them from Antakia. "We walked for six hours in the cold dark, from 9pm to 3am, but that still meant we were lucky since we heard it took other immigrants two days to reach the same destination." It was the last day of the holy month of last year's Ramadan and the whole group spent the first day of the feast in Antakia where they stayed for four days in rooms rented by the traffickers.

"We were then taken by a bus to a hotel in Istanbul where we had to stay for a month and a half. It was already winter and snow was everywhere. Our initial plan to go to Greece by land was no longer a viable option. The traffickers decided to take us on a yacht from a place called Izmir to Greece but it was at this point that fate took an unexpected turn."

Amin and his friends never actually boarded the yacht. Turkish coast guards spotted the vessel and opened fire on the traffickers on deck. One of the traffickers was wounded and the rest were sentenced to seven years in jail.

"Traffickers, of course, gave up on us and left us to fend for ourselves," Amin went on. "We didn't know anything in the country. Lost and not speaking the language, police soon realised we were strangers. We were arrested and stayed in custody for 45 days.

None of the detainees, however, said they were Egyptian. "We said we were Palestinian in the hope that they would let us into the country as refugees. The last thing we wanted was to be deported to Egypt after all the money and effort we had put into the trip."

According to Amin, there were 70 more illegal Egyptian immigrants in the same jail with him; no one revealed his true identity. "It usually happens that immigrants are given temporary papers to stay for a few days after which they are arrested if they don't leave the country."

But it didn't work out that way for Amin and his fellow immigrants. "We were ripped off of our money and mobiles and deported to the Iranian border. There, we were left to our own devices. It was too dark and cold but nothing scared us more than falling into the hands of Kurdish mafia who hide in the mountains. Those who are captured by them are ordered to either pay a ransom of 5,000 euros or have their organs transplanted. They were hours of dread and anticipation. We ran like crazy and two of us were about to be caught before we screamed for help... coast guards eventually appeared on the horizon."

But coastguards were not much of a help either. "They immediately opened fire on us and we had to dive into the snow to avoid the bullets. Then we were put in a miserable jail on the borders where we spent 10 days in very poor conditions. We were not allowed to go to the toilet except twice a day, at 6am and 5pm, and we had to wait on a very long queue, sitting on ice, for our turn to come. We almost starved in the cold. We were given one loaf of bread to live on for two days."

The weary travellers were then summoned before an Iranian judge who ordered them transferred to a jail in Tehran which, in the words of Amin, was a five-star hotel when compared to the prison on the border. "We spent three weeks there," he said. "We then had no other choice but to reveal our Egyptian identity to get deported to our homeland. There was nothing to do in Iran and there was no way we wanted to be deported to Turkey.

"Back home, we spent around three days at state security where we were interrogated for having been in Iran. They feared we were terrorists, but we explained the whole matter and were finally released."

But that was not the end. Amin's fiancé decided to break up with him upon his return for having wasted almost all his savings on a failed trip to Europe. Today, Amin is preparing for another marriage -- and has not given up on his dreams.

"Who said I've given up going to Europe?" he scoffed. "Do you have a stable job for me here? I live on daily wages and will not have any income if I get ill. Of course I will try to cross the borders again no matter what it takes. And all those who were with me on the first trip plan to take the risk again. We simply have no other choice."