Christina Lamb - The Girl From Aleppo - Nujeen’s Escape From War to Freedom

Where we needed to be wasn’t far along the beach but when we got to the end there was a sheer cliff blocking us off. The only way round was to swim, which we obviously couldn’t do. So we’d ended up having to walk up and down another rugged hill to reach the right point on the shore. Those slopes were like hell. If you slipped and fell into the sea you’d definitely be dead. It was so rocky that I couldn’t be pushed or pulled but had to be carried. My cousins teased me, ‘You are the Queen, Queen Nujeen!’

By the time we got to the right beach the sun was setting, an explosion of pink and purple as if one of my little nieces was squiggling coloured crayons across the sky. From the hills above I heard the gentle tinkle of goat-bells.

We spent the night in the olive grove. Once the sun had gone the temperature dropped suddenly and the ground was hard and rocky even though Nasrine spread all the clothes we had around me. But I was terribly exhausted, having never spent so much time outside in my life, and I slept most of the night. We couldn’t make a fire because it might attract police. Some people used the cardboard dinghy cartons to try and cover themselves. It felt like one of those movies where a group go camping and something terrible happens.

Breakfast was sugar cubes and Nutella which might sound exciting but kind of sucks when it’s all you have. The smugglers had promised we would leave early in the morning and by dawn we were all ready on the beach in our life jackets. Our phones were tied inside party balloons to protect them on the crossing, a trick we had been shown how to do in İzmir.

There were several other groups waiting. We had paid $1,500 each instead of the usual $1,000 to have a dinghy just for our family, but it seemed others would be in our boat. We would be thirty-eight in total – twenty-seven adults and eleven children. Now we were here there was nothing we could do – we couldn’t go back and people said the smugglers used knives and cattle prods on those who changed their minds.

The sky was cloudless, and close by I could see that the sea wasn’t just one colour, the uniform blue of pictures and my imaginings, but bright turquoise next to the shore then a deeper blue darkening to grey then indigo near the island. I knew the sea only from National Geographic documentaries and now it was as if I was part of one. I felt really wired and couldn’t understand why everyone was nervous. For me it was like the biggest adventure!

Other kids were running and collecting pebbles of different colours. A small Afghan boy gave me one the shape of a dove, flat and grey with a white marble vein running through it. It was cool to the touch and worn smooth by the sea. It’s not always easy for me to hold things in my awkward fingers but I wasn’t letting go of that.

There were people from Syria like us as well as from Iraq, Morocco and Afghanistan speaking in a language we didn’t understand. Some people swapped stories but most didn’t say much. They didn’t need to. To be leaving all you knew and had built up in your own country to make this dangerous and uncertain journey, it must be bad.

As morning broke we watched the first boats go out. Two set off more or less straight but two were going in all directions. The boats didn’t have pilots – what happened was the smugglers let one of the refugees travel for half price or for free if he drove the boat even though none of them had any experience. ‘It’s just like riding a motorbike,’ they claimed. My uncle Ahmed was going to be driving our boat. I guessed he’d never driven one as we had never been to the sea and his old job was running a mobile-phone shop, but he assured us he knew how.

We’d heard that some refugees gun the motor to get halfway across to Greek waters as fast as possible and they burn out the motor. Sometimes the engines don’t have enough fuel. If that happens the Turkish coastguard catch you and bring you back. In Café Sinbad in İzmir we’d met a family from Aleppo who had tried to cross six times. We didn’t have money to keep trying.

Around 9 a.m. Uncle Ahmed called the smuggler, but he said we must wait for the coastguard to go. ‘We have chosen the wrong smuggler,’ said Nasrine. I worried we had been cheated again. We hadn’t expected to be here so long and were soon hungry and thirsty which was ironic as there was so much water in front of us. My cousins went to try and find water for me and the children but there was nothing near by.

The day got hotter. Though the smuggler had arrived with dinghies for us and the other groups, he said we couldn’t go until the coastguard changed shift. The Moroccan men were half naked and started singing. As the afternoon came, the waves started to get higher, making a slapping sound on the shore. None of us wanted to go at night as we’d heard stories of kind of pirates on jet-skis who board boats in the dark to steal motors and the valuables of refugees.

Finally, around 5 p.m., they said the coastguards were changing guard so we could take advantage and go. I looked again at the sea. A mist was coming down and the cry of the seagulls no longer seemed so joyful. A dark shadow lay over the rocky island. Some call that crossing rihlat al -moot or the route of death. It would either deliver us to Europe or swallow us up. For the first time I felt scared.

Back home I often watched a series called Brain Games on National Geographic which showed how feelings of fear and panic are controlled by the brain, so I began practising breathing deeply and telling myself over and over that I was strong.

Syria, 1999–2014

Before they are numbers, these people are first and foremost human beings.

Pope Francis, Lesbos, 16 April 2016

I don’t collect stamps or coins or football cards – I collect facts. Most of all I like facts about physics and space, particularly string theory. Also about history and dynasties like the Romanovs. And controversial people like Howard Hughes and J. Edgar Hoover.

My brother Mustafa says I only need to hear something once to remember it exactly. I can list you all the Romanovs from the first one Tsar Mikhail to Nicholas II who was murdered by the Bolsheviks along with all his family, even his youngest daughter Anastasia. I can tell you exactly what date Queen Elizabeth II became queen of England – both the day her father died and her coronation – and the dates of both her birthdays, actual and official. I’d like to meet her one day and ask her ‘What’s it like having Queen Victoria as your great-great-grandmother?’ and ‘Isn’t it odd everyone singing a song about saving you?’

I can also tell you that the only animal not to make a sound is a giraffe because it has no vocal cords. This used to be one of my favourite facts, but then people started calling our dictator Bashar al-Assad the Giraffe because he has a long neck.

Now here is a fact I don’t think anyone should like. Did you know that one in every 113 people in the world today are refugees or displaced from their homes? Lots of them are escaping wars like the one that has ravaged our country Syria, or those in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. Others are running from terrorist groups in Pakistan and Somalia or from persecution by mullah regimes in Iran and Egypt. Then there are ones fleeing dictatorship in Gambia, forced conscription in Eritrea, and hunger and poverty in countries in Africa I never saw on a map. On TV I keep hearing reporters say that the movement of people from the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia into Europe is the largest refugee crisis since the Second World War. In 2015 more than 1.2 million came to Europe. I was one of them.