Addional information on Abbas Khider

“You have to travel on your own by train. Our lorry won’t come for another three to five days at least
and you won’t last that long. In three days’ time you’ll be a dead man. I’ll buy you a ticket and then
you can travel to Athens by train. When you arrive, you’ll be saved. And if the police catch you, you’ll
be saved too because they’ll take you to hospital.”
I agreed. A Kurd named Imad said he’d had enough and he wanted to come with me. Shortly before
midday our smuggler arrived with a car being driven by a Greek. The smuggler gave us both tickets
and explained to us that the Greek would take us to the station.
We shaved and put clean clothes on, clothes that every refugee has in his rucksack for such
occasions. Then we got in the car. The Greek didn’t say a word. He drove us through a small town
and then stopped next to a low building, on which there was a sign saying : “Xanti Station”. He left
straight away. Two minutes later he came back and accompanied us to the platform. Five minutes
later we got into the train and he said good bye with a quick “Yassu – Bye!”
The train travelled on. After a while the ticket inspector came up and checked our tickets. He said:
“Passport.”
I said: “No.”
He brought us right to the front of the train, near the engine and tried to make us understand that
we should wait there for him. He went into the driver’s compartment and picked up the telephone.
Imad and I looked at each other and didn’t make a sound. Of course, we understood what this meant
for us. The train began to travel more slowly. There seemed to be a small town nearby. The inspector
came back out of the driver‘s compartment and took us towards the middle of the train. The train
stopped, the doors opened and passengers got off. Imad looked at me and whispered: “No police.”
Without hesitating we jumped out of the train and ran down the street. It was dark and no-one
followed us.
We ran as far as a large park. There were lots of people there, eating or chatting.
“Man, it’s just like in an action film!” Imad grinned.
“Yes, you’re right, an action film based on a true story.”
Fortunately, I wasn’t under any pain, bearing in mind there was a bullet in my body. We spent our
time in the park observing people in the street and admiring the beautiful Greek women. Time went
by quickly and we didn’t really know what we should do. In the park I spoke to a young lad, who had
a bottle of beer and some peanuts beside him.
“Hello, can you help me? I would like a ticket to Athens. I have money. Can you buy for me?”
Exactly where we were and the name of the town was at this point of no interest to us. I was always
of the opinion that we were in Kavala. However, as I learnt years later, there are no trains and
therefore no station there. In fact, we were in Drama. You could hardly have found a name that
better suited our predicament.
My English wasn’t great, but the young Greek’s English wasn‘t much better. However, he gave the
impression that he was enjoying our little conversation. And so it seemed that our tragic drama in
Drama had found a solution. I told the Greek that we were Iraqis and didn’t want to buy our tickets
ourselves. He accompanied us to a small park next to the station building. Then he went in alone. A
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