From Darkness to Hope: A Journey of Survival and Strength

By Chalya Hama

Sometimes, you must make a difficult decision to protect your life and your family’s well-being. Here is an interesting story about my journey from my country (Iraq) to the United Kingdom. 

I am from the Kurdistan region of Iraq. Four years ago, I had a normal life with my parents, and everyone was happy. My brothers and I studied, my dad had a regular job, and my mum was a housewife. We lived together, and we had many family members who were very nice and friendly. But suddenly, we found ourselves in a difficult situation that brought many problems and negative effects on us. So, we had to make the decision to leave the country to save our lives.

The night was as silent and dark as a closed room. We went outside and managed to cross the border on foot, horseback, and by car. My heart sank when I realised I was leaving my country and seeing my family in this situation. 

The next day, we travelled to Iran and stayed in the basement of an animal sanctuary with some unfamiliar people for one week. The location had a heavy, hard-to-ignore scent of death.

The days passed as slowly as a snail, each one dragging on endlessly. We fought hard to stay alive, surviving on nothing but bread and water, like prisoners.

One week later, we continued our journey, travelling from Iran to Turkey by car and pickup truck, which took us a few days to reach. 

We reached our destination, Turkey. We stayed in a basement for a few weeks. The room was small, and all the windows were covered with plastic bags to keep us safe from the outside, another prison. These days felt excessively long, and we weren’t allowed to go outside because we didn’t have any ID with us. So, we just remained in prison until the last day. 

Last night, around 2:00 am, we drove to the beach with nearly 125 people. At first, we didn’t know how we were going to leave the country, but when we arrived, we saw a very dangerous boat that we had not heard anything about. Unfortunately, we found ourselves in a bad situation, but we had no other choice, trapped like a bird in a cage. The only way to survive was for us to get into this old boat; it felt like stepping into our own coffin.

We stayed on this boat for six days with many people, including children. The hardest part was seeing the little kids crying for milk and watching the elderly, too weak to stand. These days were very difficult for us; we had only some drinks and very few grocery items to eat.

The sea was vast and tranquil; you couldn’t see anything beyond the endless water. The night was filled with too many voices whispering things you couldn’t understand.

Every single moment, I was thinking about how to get out of the sea. Imagine you are in the ocean, and you don’t even know what will happen to your life and your family. Sometimes I just wonder, if we die, who will know? We only had Allah to protect us from all the bad situations.

In the late night, while I was sleeping on the boat, I heard a scream from the people. It woke me up. 

The boat was broken, and water flooded in! Everyone was screaming and crying. It was the worst part of my life. In those moments, I felt disappointed as my family and I looked at each other and cried.

Fortunately, half an hour after the police arrived, they found us. We were all happy and thanked Allah for saving us from the worst nightmare. After that, they took us to a small town where we stayed in quarantine for approximately 10 days.

Then we travelled from the country to another country via minibus with my family until we reached the jungle. We stayed with my family in the jungle for approximately three weeks. 

The jungle was as dark as night; we had small cabins to sleep in, and we had to use cold water to shower. 

Three weeks later, we walked to the beach again. It took nearly four hours to get there, and there were 30 people in the small boat. Everything was fine until suddenly, one man fell into the sea, causing everyone to scream and cry. Fortunately, the man survived with help from others. 

At the end of the day, we finally reached the border. We were exhausted but safe. We had survived.

Thanks to Allah, we are all happy now, and our everyday life is back.