EDGES MAGAZINE Issue 23

October 2000

Bek, 17 year old asylum seeker from Mitrovica, Kosovo

“My name is Bek. I am seventeen and I’ll be eighteen next month. I am Kosovan. I come from Mitrovica. It’s a big city, the second biggest in Kosovo. I am Albanian and I am a Muslim.

Things became really bad when I was fifteen. Everyone was moving or advising each other to get out and go somewhere safe - the Muslim people I mean. I had to escape because me and my friends had been helping the KLA soldiers - giving them information, food and clothing. At the beginning they weren’t really soldiers, but then they became an army. Everybody helped the soldiers - most of my friends were helping them too - you have to you know, it’s for your future. If I had been older then I would have been made to join the army- I wouldn’t have had a choice.

One day the Serbian police came round to my house to look for me. I escaped out of the back door. I was really scared. I can’t say what would have happened to me if I had stayed, but it would have been dangerous because I’m not a Serb. I escaped with Mila, my friend.

My family wanted me to leave because they knew it wasn’t safe for me. They are in Bosnia now. I really miss my family, and of course they miss me, but they are happy because I am safe. But it is a long time to be away from my family. I haven’t had contact with them for five months.

When we left Mitrovica there was another guy with us - an older guy - and he took us to Macedonia in his van. There was a carpet in the van and we had to hide underneath it. When we got to Macedonia, Mila and I paid another man 4,500 deutchmarks - half each - to get away in his lorry. I wanted to go to Switzerland because I have some cousins there. I didn’t know that I was going to England.

We travelled on three different lorries altogether. The driver of the third lorry didn’t know we were there. It was a big lorry and we hid in the back. We just wanted to escape. We were happy to get away from the war, though we were scared about the next part too. We could tell that we were crossing the sea and that’s when we guessed that we were going to England.

The journey to England took three days. We didn’t have any food, we had nothing. When we got out of the lorry the first thing I wanted was to get some food.

We were discovered when the lorry stopped at a petrol station and the driver got out to get some stuff. He saw us and told us to get out, but he wasn’t angry. Someone called the police - maybe the driver, I don’t know. The police took us to the city centre. There was a translator who helped us find a solicitor - they said that this was the most important thing. The solicitor gave us lots of forms to fill in.

I spoke a little bit of English then, which helped. We stayed at the interpreter’s house for two or three weeks, and then Mila and I were given a room to stay in by the social services. But since then I have moved about four or five times. Social services give us £35 a week.

It’s enough to buy food, but not clothes. Things are very expensive. When I first arrived in England I was shocked that I had gone in the wrong direction. I wanted to go back again - not back to Kosovo, but to Switzerland - and I found that wasn’t possible.

People are really not friendly to me here. The most difficult thing is learning the language, and communicating with people. It is very hard. And there are so many forms to fill out. But I have been treated well by social services. I don’t know if it is like that for everybody. It’s different for different people.

When I see the stories in the newspapers about asylum seekers I feel bad. Some people have seen the war in Kosovo on the television and then they see Kosovan people here and they can say yes, it is a good thing, and we are going to help them. But not everyone is like that. Some of them say ‘What are they doing here, why have they come here?’ I have met people like this myself and I can tell you a story about that. I used to live in a place with three other asylum seekers and something happened there. It was like a racist attack. A lot of people came to the house and smashed up the windows and doors with sticks and baseball bats. One of my friends got hurt and had to go to hospital. I was out at the time. If I had been there with my friends I would have been very, very frightened. It was really horrible.

We had to move house after that happened - it was too dangerous for us to stay there. The police stayed with us until we moved. Our social worker found me a place to stay. When I first got here I did an English course. My English is getting much better but I still find the work very difficult though.

I’m not sure what I want to do when I finish school - really I just have to concentrate so hard on studying English, and if I want to study anything else I find it hard. I’m taking it step by step. When I was growing up I wanted to be an astronaut but I think I’m a long way off that. It was just something I wanted to do when I was a kid.

I will be eighteen next month and instead of getting money I will get vouchers. I think this is going to be more difficult because you can buy just food and nothing else. That’s why I am trying to save money now.

I want to go back to Kosovo. I hope that I can go back next year. I might go to university but I might not. I don’t know if it will be safe to go back next year - maybe war might start again. I am still waiting to see if I can stay in Britain. I’m waiting to hear from the Home Office whether I have to go back or whether I can have refugee status. I don’t know when I will find out.”

I am from Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. The fighting has been going on in my country for many years.

Things got really bad when the Taliban came, five years ago. Everyday there was fighting, from morning to night. There was lots of bombing and shooting. Many people were killed.

I was fourteen when I was injured by a bomb. It blew up close to me and I was thrown back into the air. My arm and leg were broken and I hurt my back.

My father, my mother, and my little sister were killed by a bomb three years ago, when I was fifteen. It is very difficult for me to talk about this.

My father used to have a tobacco shop. At one O’clock he came back from the shop to have a meal with my mother and my sister. I was at school but I could hear all the fighting. At two O’clock I came home and saw what had happened. My whole street had been destroyed. There was nothing left. No father, no mother. My home was finished. When I saw this I fell to the ground. I was in hospital for one month. I couldn’t speak at all - I couldn’t even make a sound. After one month I started to speak again very, very slowly. It is still very difficult for me to speak.

After my parents were killed I stayed in Afghanistan for two years, with my mother’s sister. Then I went to Pakistan to live with my older brother and sister. I stayed there for one month. I wasn’t able to go to school. (N.B. In some parts of Pakistan refugees are not entitled to an education.)

My brother and sister paid a man five thousand dollars to get me to England. I came here in a lorry and a boat. For two months I didn’t speak to or see anybody. I slept and ate in the lorry. It was very hard. I was sick everyday

I only had enough food and water for one month. After this time all my food and water was finished. Five or six times I had to get out and steal food. I had never stolen before. My mother and father taught me not to steal.

When the lorry got to England, five or six policemen got onto the lorry and started to look everywhere. I escaped out of the top and hid outside, underneath the lorry. One man saw me but he put his finger to his lips and told me not to speak. He was a very good man.

I found a place to sit underneath the lorry before it started moving. Then I stayed in this position for a long time. It was raining very heavily and the driver was going very fast. It was terrible and I was frightened. I was holding on very tight and my arms were very painful. I thought ‘Oh my God, why have you come here? I don’t like England’. The wheels were spraying water all over me and I was very wet and dirty. After about six hours I fell.

One or two days later I woke up in hospital. I didn’t know where I was. Then a woman brought me to the Social Services in Oxford and they gave me money and somewhere to stay. It has been good for me here. I go to school here. I am learning to speak English.

Now I am young, and I must work, because I need money. I would like to work in fashion, making clothes. I am very good at cutting and working with material. I will be eighteen next month, so instead of getting money I will get vouchers. This will be very difficult because it means I can only buy food. I won’t be able to buy clothes or telephone cards.

I can’t go back to Afghanistan - please, no - there is fighting, fighting all the time. I want to go back to my brother and sister in Pakistan. I send them letters, and sometimes we speak on the telephone. I want to join them again but I can’t because I haven’t got any money.”

Aleksandras - 21 year old asylum seeker from Eastern Europe

“I left my country because my life was in danger. I was told something bad was going to happen to me. There are so many problems there - political, criminal. Gangsters run everything. The police are corrupt. I had no-one to turn to.

One day I bought a plane ticket to London. I chose London because I had heard that the human rights are good in this country. I believed I would be given asylum. What I would do after that, I did not know.

I arrived at Gatwick airport one day in early November last year. I spoke no English and had to find someone from my flight to explain that I wanted to claim asylum. At immigration an officer asked where I was from, and he said ‘bye, bye’, and waved back towards the plane. I just stood there. His friends laughed.


An interpreter came. Immigration said they would put me on a plane to Latvia. Or would I prefer to go to Germany? You’ll be alright in Germany, they said. They would pay for the ticket. But I told them I wouldn’t go.

They put me in a room with other asylum seekers. They took my fingerprints, and my photograph, and then I waited for ten hours for a solicitor. There were a lot of questions and even the interpreter was angry. After they had finished, the immigration people drove me in a bus to a place near the airport that looked like a prison, a fortress. It was surrounded by big walls and cameras, and it looked frightening. They took my fingerprints again. I was there for a week. A guard said they would send me to Rochester prison.

In the end I was taken to another detention centre, this time near Heathrow. I was held until Christmas Eve. That day they took me to Campsfield House, in Oxfordshire. When I got there I called my cousin who lives in London, and she was sad that I couldn’t go to London for Christmas.

Every day in detention is the same. Time goes slowly. You get up, go for breakfast, go for an English class, or go to the gym. The first few weeks are bad, but when you get to know people it’s better. It doesn’t matter where you come from - Kosovo, Algeria, Russia, Africa - you have a bond. Some of the officers are racist. If you do something they don’t like, they threaten you with prison. There are a lot of hunger strikes. Hunger strikes are the only way to get the world to notice us. Some men go crazy with worry about their families if they can’t see them.

In February my request for asylum was refused. Then two English people agreed to sign papers to guarantee I wouldn’t run away, and I was released on bail in early April. Since then I have lived with four Kosovans in a house in Oxford, waiting to find out what will happen. The Kosovans don’t speak English, So I can’t really talk to them. But I know them from Campsfield, so we are friendly.

I have nothing to do all day. I can’t do anything, I’m not allowed to work. I hate being in all day. Social Services pay for some basic things, but if you need actual cash for anything it’s very difficult. When I asked if I could have some cash, I was told that I could not, because my asylum request has been refused.

I live on vouchers. They are for the Co-op shop only, and they are for one or five pounds. You can’t get any change from them when you buy your food. You have to go around the shop finding things you don’t even want, to spend it all, so you don’t waste it. The only money we get is for bus fares, but It’s not much, and that goes quickly.

I’ve just had a letter from Immigration. The letter tells me about my ‘removal’. They don’t believe how bad it is in my country, or care about my problems when I go back. I knew a man who slashed his wrists at the airport rather than get back on the plane. He didn’t die, but he would rather die than go back.

I don’t know what will happen when I go home. It will still be dangerous for me. My mother left the flat we used to share, and I haven’t heard from her since. I don’t know where she’s gone. There is no-one to go back to.”