Underground railroad 6.0
by digby
Things have improved for many millions in the in the 21st century but this old and depressing story is still unhappily all too common:
Like more than 3 million other Syrians, Nawras fled his country in 2012 as the Syrian civil war ramped up in brutality. Along with his mother and six siblings, he escaped Damascus for Istanbul soon after his 13th birthday, where the family has eked out a living for the past two years. (His father died about a year before the war began.) Between classes at a school for young Syrian refugees, Nawras worked at a small restaurant and with an electrician, earning between 5 and 10 Turkish lira ($2.5 to $5) for 12-hour days. When it came, each lira went to his mother, but Nawras, unable to legally work, had little leverage when his bosses simply refused to pay. Still, after two years he and his family had finally saved up enough money. Nawras was bound for Sweden.
“My mother didn’t want me to go because it’s so dangerous,” Nawras says in slow but proficient English, “and my sisters were very worried but it is really the only choice. We have no life and no future in Istanbul.”
Nawras’s journey to Sweden represents one of the last options for his family to be together, but it is one he must make alone. Over the last year, his three older sisters have all made it there. But Nawras’s journey carries extra significance: Unlike them, he is a minor, so if he makes it and receives asylum, he’ll likely be able to bring his mother and two younger siblings to Sweden as well. Without enough money to send anyone with him, the family’s dreams for this future together depend on his success in evading authorities over the course of the next few days.
Read the whole story. When you look at Nawras’ face in accompanying pictorial you see a boy who could be any 15 year old in your neighborhood.
It reminds me of those kids who came over the border last summer from Guatemala and Honduras. And how the nation of immigrants known as America reacted to it. A real low point.
I guess 15 year old kids have been migrating thousands of miles from to try to make a better future for themselves since forever. But you’d think the richest society in the world would have developed a little more compassion. We want to drop bombs from safe distances, but that’s about it.
.