Thesis 100dpi

66 REFUGIUM
EXPERIENCES FROM THE EDGE
CROSSING THE SEA
Louay Khalid fled from the violent outbreak in the Syrian
Arab Republic via Lebanon and Egypt, eventually ending
up in Libya. After working there for a year, he decided to
leave the troubled country. Unable to return to his home
country or to bring his family to Libya, Louay Khalid
planned his crossing to Europe. However, he was completely
unaware of the risks of the journey. The boat on
which he crossed the Mediterranean tragically sank on 10
October 2013.
After paying a smuggler 1,300 Libyan dinars (about USD
1,075) for the trip, Louay Khalid was locked in a house
for about two weeks with around 450 other aspiring
migrants. They were not allowed to leave the house and
were told that if they did they would be shot. Eventually,
they were loaded onto trucks before being stuffed onto
a heavily overloaded boat that was steered by other
migrants.
‘‘Once I saw the vessel . . . I could immediately tell that
we were too many people. There were people everywhere
you could look – people in the engine room,
people on the mast even – literally everywhere.’’
Shortly after departure, police approached the boat
twice, urging the vessel to return. However, the migrants
continued their journey until maritime police appeared.
The police requested the vessel to stop its journey, but
the vessel kept on moving, at which point, the police
fired shots and began to “round” the vessel, throwing
ropes to jam the engine fan. Even though passengers
were crying and parents holding their children closely to
them, the firing continued until the cabin broke down.
During the commotion, two women gave birth. Finally,
the police left.
The following day, the migrants called the Red Cross in
Lampedusa for help. When an airplane arrived after four
hours, the people on board attempted so desperately to
attract its attention that the
vessel capsized. When the plane returned with life
buoys, many of the people had already drowned.
‘‘I was wearing a life-jacket . . . that saved my life. The
people who were inside the boat all died.’’
DESERT STRUGGLE
The extremes of the Sonoran Desert have a dominant and
prevailing influence over southern Arizona. It is not all
picture-perfect, sand-duned desert, but more like the wilderness
the Israelites sojourned through for 40 years after
the Exodus from Egypt. There is scrub vegetation with lots
of dirt, rocks and craggy mountains. Temperatures can
dip way below freezing at night and soar into the 40s by
day—and that’s just in winter. The biggest enemy of life in
this wilderness are the elements. Those traveling by foot
regularly die of dehydration, hypothermia/hyperthermia,
sepsis from frostbite or infected, gangrenous foot blisters.
Drowned world: artist Jason deCaires Taylor ‘s extraordinary
series of concrete sculptures representing desperate refugees
It’s hard enough to drive through the Arizona desert,
where the sun is harsh and the distances immense. This
is the story of Brenda.
The interview took place in Nogales, Sonora, on the
northern border of Mexico opposite Arizona. She was
living in a shelter for deported people, where she told of
her brief and difficult stay in the United States.
She’d come all the way from southern Mexico, and
crossed the border into Arizona in 2014. Then her group
of migrants was spotted by the U.S. Border Patrol somewhere
outside of Tucson. How did she escape? “I ran,”
she said simply, but she was separated from her group,
and was soon lost in the desert.