Last saturday was supposed to mark the start of my trip to Izmir/Turkey. My wife and my 1 year old son have been there for a week already and I was looking forward to joining them at the house of my wife’s grandparents. At least that’s what I thought …
After a slightly delayed 3h flight I arrived in Izmir and hurried to the pass control. Impatiently I stood there watching people in front me getting there papers and id cards checked. The whole
mess started when it was my turn. The man in the little glass box office was about to hand me back my id card along with some silly tourist post card when he suddenly realized that something was wrong with my id card: It had expired a year ago. I was baffled. How could this be and why didn’t they say anything on my way out of Switzerland. They must have overlooked it. Not to mention of course that I had been an idiot for not looking at it myself in time …
Things started to go on a much faster pace than my Turkish speaking abilities would allow me to follow so I was happy to eventually get my wife on the phone. I was allowed to see her for short 5 minutes after which we were told she had to leave. I was led to a holding facility for people that are to deported. Before that I had to sign some papers which were pretty much exclusively in Turkish. Someone with bad English vaguely told me what i was about but i absolutely can’t remember now.
In the following hours I wasn’t quite sure what and especially when anything is going to happen. Initially they had told me that there would be a flight back to Switzerland right away but apparently that was booked out. I still hadn’t completely given up hope that there might be a way that I could perhaps stay in Turkey. Since it was a saturday I couldn’t call the German consulate. (I just checked the website. There is a phone number for emergencies, which however will not provide any information on passport/visa matters. Not very helpful then is it?)
My feelings at this point where mixed and largely depended on the way the security staff was treating me there. Fortunately however they were mostly very friendly. I got something to eat and drink. At some point one of the guys brought me some tea and we sat together and tried to chat a bit. Things could have been worse (and for some they were, I will get to that shortly).
So far so good. The fact remained that i’m in a holding facility while my wife and kid are at my grandparents 5km down the road. After some hours had gone by I began to understand the role
of the security officers. They were not exactly security personnel per se they were what I would call appeasement officers:
‘No, no its alright. here have something to drink. Things will be okay.’
This of course only works well until the detained become aware of this. Muhammad had long reached that point. Muhammad is a 28 year old afghan currently living in Sweden. He managed to leave Afghanistan about 6 years ago. Other close relatives including a son (if I understood correctly) have been living in Teheran since. Muhammad somehow managed to collect the money for a flight to visit them. Just like me however he didn’t reach his destination:
Izmir was one stop on his journey from Gothenburg/Sweden to Teheran/Iran via Athens/Greece and Izmir/Turkey. He was stopped there because he didn’t have the necessary papers that would allow him to travel on. Why he wasn’t stopped earlier on is beyond me.
Fact is he was now stranded in Izmir. At the point I met him he had been there for 5 days. The appeasement effect was clearly wearing off. He had already cut his wrist hoping that this would somehow change his fate. It was to no avail.
Muhammad has been through a lot. Life in Afganistan sure must have been hard. His father like many others was shot there and he hasn’t seen the rest of his family for 6 years. He managed to make a short phone call telling them that they should not wait at the airport since he won’t be able to make it there. Everyone was crying and he had to end the phone call.
Talking to Muhammad is not so easy because his English isn’t that good and I obviously don’t speak Farsi. One of the security guys spoke a bit of Farsi though. He kept on telling him that he will make it to Teheran somehow eventually while in fact the airline was preparing to have him sent to Cologne/Germany. Muhammad kept on saying that he doesn’t know anyone in Germany and that he doesn’t have any cash at all that would enable him to fly to anywhere. Despite repeated pleas by him nobody from the airline he bought the ticket from ever came to talk to him.
Security talking to Muhammad
Later on some airport staff members arrived and told him that he has only 2 options: Either he flies to Cologne/Germany or Athens/Greece. In either case he needs to take care of getting a ticket to anywhere on his own.
He refused to fly to Cologne. I can’t tell what happened after that because I was ‘offered’ a seat to Cologne which I accepted. Cologne is a 7h train ride away from home but i’d rather sit in a train for 7 hours then being locked up in the airport. Also if I had neglected to fly to Cologne i might have had to wait 2 full days for another flight.
Fast forward to today, Tuesday. Yesterday I got myself a preliminary id card and bought a new ticket to Izmir. The whole journey was quite exhausting. I was on the road for about 30h. Yet here I am sitting on my couch typing this into my macbook and listening to music. The whole experience was very annoying and bothersome and at times also worrying. But that is all. If I was to really empty my bank account I could fly around between Turkey and Germany a dozen times. Same goes for a large number of people reading this now.
For the limited time that I sat in the holding facility with Muhammad we shared something: We were both held in a place where we did not want to be, separated from our beloved. Yet there are worlds between Muhammad and me. I haven’t seen my wife and kid for a week. Muhammad still hasn’t seen his family in 6 years. Flying back and forth is an annoyance for me – For Muhammad it is a crisis. He doesn’t have any money let alone several hundred EUR to fly anywhere. On top of that he doesn’t have a travel permit. So even if he did indeed have
the money necessary i’m not sure he can get the required papers.
Before I left Muhammad at the airport I told him that I would try to help him. I got in touch with Pro Asyl (http://www.proasyl.de/) who in turned got me in touch with Multeci-Der (www.multeci.org.tr). I was in touch with them again a few hours ago and found out that Muhammad is in fact still at the airport. They are waiting for a translator to arrive and will then hopefully go to the airport to talk to him as soon as possible. Anything beyond that remains
uncertain until all details are known. I am convinced however that in either case it will be good if there is someone who Muhammad can talk to in his native language and who is going to represent his interests.
I hope this will happen real soon. I hope that when I’m at the airport again tomorrow he won’e be locked up there anymore. Finally I hope that I will remember this for a good while and waste less time being angry about idiotic first world problems.
superfamicomtastic 