From war-torn Syria to safety — in a wheelchair

NUJEEN Mustafa fled her home in Syria to seek safety in Europe, only to find herself being talked about on TV after learning English from watching Days Of Our Lives.

Nujeen Mustafa doesn’t let her disability or refugee status stop her from smiling.

I HATE the word refugee more than any word in the English language. In German it is Flüchtling, which is just as harsh.

What it really means is a second-class citizen with a number scrawled on your hand or printed on a wristband, who everyone wishes would somehow go away.

The year 2015 was when I became a fact, a statistic, a number. Much as I like facts, we are not numbers, we are human beings and we all have stories. This is mine.

Nujeen and her family are waiting on a Turkish beach for a smuggler to help them cross to the Greek island of Lesbos.

The smuggler arrived with the boats in “Made in China” boxes. When our dinghy was inflated, my uncle Ahmed became very angry. We had paid extra to have a new dinghy, but this was an old one with a big repair patch on the bottom. Also the outboard motor was only 20 horsepower instead of the usual 30. The smuggler just shrugged. What could we do?

Police assist Nujeen during her journey from Syria to Germany.

From the sea the island looked much further away. Our dark grey dinghy was very small. Even though we had paid extra for it just to be the 38 of us, instead of 50 or so, it was still more than double the “15 Max” it said on the box, particularly with my wheelchair, and it felt very squashed.

Just a small tear in the dinghy’s fabric from my wheelchair catching and we could have capsized

Many people had closed their eyes and were praying. Nasrine was crouching on the floor trying to hold my chair still. To start with, it was nice to feel the spray after being in the hot sun all day. Finally, the T-shirt I had worn for days was getting a wash. But as waves pitched us up and down, some of my cousins started retching. Others were crying and screaming, “Oh God!”

At one point a wave tossed us right to one side and my aunt lost her bag with all her valuables. We seemed very low in the water. My cousins used their shoes to scoop water out of the dinghy. “We should never have brought the wheelchair,” someone said.

I felt I should be worried – I knew this water might be our grave. And of course I can’t swim. I’d never been in water. None of us could swim. Yet sitting in my wheelchair, higher than everyone else, I thought of myself like Poseidon, God of the Sea, in his chariot.

“Look how beautiful it is!” I cried as we were tossed up and down. I laughed every time we were hit by another wave. “You need a psychiatrist, laughing here,” said someone. Actually I was praying, too, but quietly. Just a small tear in the dinghy’s fabric from my wheelchair catching and we could have capsized, or a large wave could have turned the boat over at any moment.

Yazidi refugees make their way along a beach in Lesbos to a refugee gathering point. Picture: AP

We didn’t know it, but that’s what happened to another Syrian family making the crossing earlier that day. In a dinghy like ours were 16 Syrians, including a barber called Abdullah Kurdi, his wife Rehanna and their two boys, five-year-old Ghalib and three-year-old Aylan. A large wave flipped the dinghy, tossing everyone out. Abdullah tried to cling on to his family but one after the other they were washed away.

The next day the photograph of little Aylan Kurdi lying face down dead in the surf on a Turkish beach went round the world. When I saw it later on Facebook, I thought that could have been me.

Coming back from the dead is not hard. You know what’s hard – getting from Syria to Germany

For a normal person, the ferry from western Turkey to Mitilini, the capital of Lesbos, costs 10 euros and takes 90 minutes. To make the same crossing as refugees had taken us 12 days to arrange and cost us each $1500.

We had been at sea three and a half hours and the sun was setting and we were starting to shiver, when suddenly there was the island rising ahead of us. Soon we could make out people waiting on the shore.

“Does anybody speak English?” we heard someone shout. “I do!” I called out. It was the first time I had spoken English to a real English-speaker.

The family has finally made it to a refugee camp in Germany.

Nasrine came in holding her phone and said she had a surprise for me. She showed me a video of an American TV show called Last Week Tonight hosted by a British man called John Oliver – he was talking about refugees [using footage of Nujeen when she had been interviewed by the BBC in Serbia en route to Germany]. Then he showed me saying that I want to be an astronaut and meet the Queen. I almost dropped the phone.

A woman from Afghanistan stands at the entrance to her prefabricated house on the island of Lesbos.

John Oliver explained I had learnt English from watching Days Of Our Lives and was sad about EJ being killed off. “How can you not want this girl in your country?” he asked. “She would improve any country that would have her.” I couldn’t believe he was talking about me.

They showed film of a man’s hand ringing a doorbell. The person opening the door was Sami from Days Of Our Lives. As she opened it, the man standing there was EJ! “Coming back from the dead is not hard,” said EJ. “You know what’s hard – getting from Syria to Germany.” He said he had read about “this incredible 16-year-old called Nujeen Mustafa”.

I was totally astonished, yelling and screaming. My favourite characters on my favourite soap opera far away in America talking about me! Also I didn’t expect to see them in love again.

Here in Germany, I feel safe. You can go for a walk and don’t expect to be dead by morning

The next day I made a video from our small room and posted it on YouTube. “This is my lucky day,” I said. “And on my lucky day I have something to say to the victims of the wars around the world. You are stronger and braver than you think. Also thanks everyone for supporting me during my journey. Wish me luck and good luck for you!”

Yet the following morning, I woke up and felt as if something had been stolen from me. Days Of Our Lives had been my own thing, it was private. Also the video wasn’t realistic – EJ and Sami would have had a fight. I would have liked that better than them talking about me.

Volunteers help refugees disembark from a vessel in Lesbos. Picture: AP

Nobody leaves their home without a reason. Sometimes I wake with nightmares about the bombing. But after two or three minutes I think, “Nujeen, you are still alive and far from bombing; everything is OK.” Here in Germany, I feel safe. You can go for a walk and don’t expect to be dead by morning.

On November 1 we moved into our new home on the ground floor of a house in a small German town called Wesseling. We have a living room, a small shower room, a kitchen and two bedrooms, which is quite tight for us three sisters and the four children. But to me it still feels like Disneyland; the kind of place I always dreamed of living in.

When you get to know us, you’ll see we are not that different. And now you have read my story, I hope you see I am not just a number. None of us are.

Nujeen: One Girl’s Incredible Journey From War-Torn Syria In A Wheelchair by Nujeen Mustafa with Christina Lamb (HarperCollins, $29.99) is out now.

Originally published as From war-torn Syria to safety — in a wheelchair