Haben’s Journey from Eritrea
Sometimes what we have to share is our story.
A story behind the numbers; from Eritrea to the UK, this is Haben’s journey in his own words.
WARNING: Sensitive Content
Photo: Haben’s own, taken in Scotland in 2020
PART 1/4
MY MOTHER WAS MY WHOLE WORLD
I grew up in Asmara, the capital city of Eritrea, with my family of five. I have an older brother and a younger sister. My mother worked at a market stall her whole life. Growing up we were a pretty normal family like everyone else in Eritrea - we’d go to school, come home and eat something and then we would go out and play football or swim in the river. I had a lot of friends and we would have sleep overs or hang out together.
A rare photo with his dad
Just like all my friends’ dads, my father was a soldier in the Eritrean army. Growing up, I didn’t really know my father because we hardly ever saw him. He would only be granted leave from the army maybe once a year, or sometimes once every 2 years. In Eritrea there is little hope of becoming anything like a doctor or a pilot or a teacher, because as soon as you turn 17 or 18, you will be forced into indefinite military service. If you are physically strong they may recruit you even earlier. My older brother was already in the service as well.
We would never speak much about politics in my family, and I know my mother would always keep conversation light with friends and neighbours because we know there are snitches everywhere. In Eritrea coffee ceremonies go on for hours and hours, but you would never dare to talk about the regime. The government restricts freedom and access to information. You could only use the internet through an internet cafe, and if you want to buy a sim card you need a lot of money and a special permission from the local government administration, and even then mobile data does not exist. So you only know what is happening through the state news, and you have no idea what goes on outside of Eritrea. At the time to me that was normal, because I didn’t know of any other way, this was my life and the lives of everyone around me, I was even looking forward to joining the military myself. But I think it was very hard on my mother even though she never showed it to us kids, she would never tell me anything but I could read it on her face. I was very attached to her, she was my whole world.
When I was 13 years old my mum got very sick. We managed to send a message out to my dad and he asked for permission to visit us but he wasn’t granted leave. Instead he deserted the army to come and see us. He came to see us one night, he gave my mom lots of hugs and kisses. I went out to see some friends and when I came back he was already gone.
That night 5 soldiers came to the house and they asked my mom where my dad is. My mother said she didn’t know and she didn’t hear anything from him.
A week went by and soldiers came back to our house again, this time they arrested my mum.
My little sister and I cried as they took my mum away. We stayed with our neighbours for three days, we cried a lot and kept asking for our mom.
When she returned she wouldn’t tell us what had happened to her. She told me I am just a kid and that I don’t need to worry about anything. But later that day, the soldiers came back again, and this time they took me.
My mum tried to stop them but they had big guns. They told her: ‘we will bring him back when he tells us where your husband is’. I was crying and struggling as they put me into the car, and I called for my mom, but one of the soldiers slapped me really hard and told me to shut up. I could see all the neighbours were watching me being taken away. I got very silent and very scared. I had no idea what was happening. I was taken to this infamous prison called Adi Abeto, north of Asmara. In Eritrea there are prisons on every corner of the city. Adi Abeto is the big one that people get taken to first, especially people who have deserted or who have tried to avoid their military service.
PART 2/4
WE WILL BRING HIM BACK WHEN HE TELLS US WHERE YOUR HUSBAND IS
As soon as I arrived they began to interrogate me about my father. But I really didn’t know anything about where he had gone because he didn’t say anything. The guard hit me with the metal belt buckle all over my body and he shouted at me: ‘Tell me! Tell me!’ Over and over again. They hit the back of my feet with a leather belt, and they used water torture on me. When I started bleeding and feeling faint they finally took me out of the room.
I was staying in a small room with maybe 20 other children and teenagers. They were there because they were trying to avoid the military service, or they were being used for extortion if they had family living abroad. There was no toilet so we had to pee in a jerry can in the corner of the room. It smelt so bad, and there were flies buzzing around it all the time. We got a very small and very bad portion of food only once a day. We were sleeping on the floor very close to each other. This small room felt like hell. I looked at the wall and it was covered in writing and carvings from all the people who had been here before me, it was completely covered with names. At night I would think of my mum and I would really, really deeply miss her. All I could think about was her.
I didn’t know what would happen to me because there is no justice system in Eritrea. People get imprisoned without charge and they can be held for many many years. There are no records kept, so unless your family has the money to bribe you out, you could be there for decades. I also wrote on the wall of my prison, I drew a big heart, and inside of it my mum’s name.
I had to endure the torture another time afterwards. I was made to kneel down on rocks for hours on end and I wasn’t allowed to sit down. My knees were bleeding and they were beating me. At some point I lost consciousness, then they would pull me up again and wake me. ‘Where is your dad?’ They asked me over and over again. I told them the truth: that I had seen him but that I didn’t know where he went afterwards. I was crying for my mum but they told me I’d never see her again unless I told them where my dad is. Inside I was so angry and I wished I had the power to kill them, and I still feel this hate until this day. These people are ruining my country: they kill children, they rape women and they take away the people’s freedom. When I hear the name of the president, Afwerki I feel pure hate to him and the people who help him. There are many people who gave their life for Eritrea’s independence, but the man in charge has become a Dictator who cares only for his own power and control. He arrests or kills anyone who opposes him. And this is essentially what the Eritrean army is set up for: all the people have to sacrifice their lives and join the army just to keep the president in power. Because there is no war going on, the military is just a tool to keep one man in his presidential position. The regime controls people’s life by instilling fear into everyone. You don’t know who you can trust and actually you can’t trust anyone - not your neighbours, not your friends, and sometimes not even your own family, everyone is paranoid.
I was a 13 year old boy in prison and in the space of a few days I had been ripped away from my family, and within another few days I would lose everything I had ever known.
After spending several days in the prison, I’m not sure how many days, maybe a week, I was woken up in the middle of the night by a soldier. He was standing over me and made a gesture: ‘Shhh…’, he pulled me up and pushed me outside. In that moment I thought they were taking me outside to shoot me. The soldier pointed to a big tree outside and we walked towards this tree. It was very dark and I couldn’t see anything, I was shaking and praying. I was thinking about my mum.
But when we reached the tree I saw a man standing there and the soldier handed me over and left. The man told me he was there to smuggle me out of Eritrea, across the border to Ethiopia. I told him that I just want to go home to my mum, but I knew this was not possible. If they found out I escaped the prison they would come back to my home and either arrest me again, or kill me, or take my mom. The smuggler told me I will be going with other Eritrean children across the border, and that I shouldn’t worry. This comforted me a little but still all I could think about was home. I had never met my uncle, just like my father he was a soldier in the army. But later I learned he was the one who bribed the prison guard and arranged with the smuggler to get me out of prison and out of the country.
PART 3/4
ADRENALINE AND FEAR
The smuggler took me to a safe house in a nearby city. From there the journey out of Eritrea was a combination of long walks and driving. We were using dirt roads and passing through farms. The farmers would tell us where to go along the way. We were a group of 20 people and mostly we travelled by night because there are always soldiers on patrol. But in Eritrea there is no light pollution at night, so when the moon comes out you can still see, even from far away.
For 3 days we didn’t sleep, just maybe an hour in the jungle and then we had to keep going again. But your body is working on adrenaline and fear: all you want to do is get out of the country. I met many people along the way who had been shot in the legs by the army. I was the most scared when we had to cross the river into Ethiopia, because the current was so powerful and we could see the soldiers in the distance. We had to jump from these big rocks and most of us couldn’t swim, so we had to walk through the water but at some points the water still came up to my chest.
When we reached the other side we were captured by the soldiers. I was so scared, but the soldiers said to us: ‘Don’t worry - we are brothers. Politics have divided our countries but we are the same.’ I grew up hating Ethiopia, because the Eritrean government brainwashes the people through propaganda and the state controlled media to think that all Ethiopians are bad. But when I was there I was treated with kindness, they gave us food and water and they sat down with us. They questioned us about where we came from, and then we were sent to a camp nearby the border. Even though I was put in a camp, I think it was the first time in my life that I felt what freedom is. I stayed in Ethiopia for 1 month. I was a young boy and I had no idea what to do, even though I was only 13 years old I was left to myself. There were no organisations to put me with a host family or anything like that. But I had a group of people around me who helped me: they cooked for me and looked after me. They said they were going to leave for Sudan and because I couldn’t live by myself I just decided to go with them. I couldn’t speak with my own family, but the smugglers still knew how to get in touch with my family, so they sent money for me to keep going.
It was another long journey by foot and by car. I just followed my friends and I didn’t even really know where we were going. Sometimes we would be split up, it depended how quickly the family back home would pay the money. Some people even end up staying somewhere and work for free in construction to pay for their journey. When I was on the road, I kept thinking about my family. I would cry a lot. But my friends were always kind to me. I was really alone in the world, and my only option was to follow wherever they were going. We spent about 3 weeks in Sudan before we continued north. The first time the police stopped us I was so scared, they performed a full body search on every person, including the women and even on me and the other children. The smugglers had to pay the police off to let us pass.
The smugglers to Libya were very cruel, they would slap you, beat you with wooden sticks and humiliate you, they would get drunk and high and drive the cars like madmen. I saw many people get injured, and I saw people dying: people getting shot, people dying of heat and also many accidents happened. When we were in Libya I saw a 6 year old child flying through the air after a car accident. The Libyan desert is hot and unforgiving and the Libyan Civil War was always going on in the distance. I could never really sleep for more than a few hours, always cramped in cars or walking through desert heat. Your body is just set up to withstand maybe another day, another hour, but you always wonder if today will be your last day. It didn’t feel like my life, I felt like I was in a film.
We were driving through the desert, many cars and vans coming from Bengazi to Tripoli, we were a group of about 600 people. And we were stopped by these big jeeps. I thought it was another checkpoint of police and that they would be searching us for money or jewellery, like in Sudan. They made us line up in queues and they asked each person: “Are you Christian?”. Everyone who said they were Christian were ordered to the left side. My friend Mickey whispered to me “Don’t tell them you’re Christian, tell them you are Muslim”. Some of the jihadist were testing people and asking them questions about the Quran and how they pray, how people wash themselves if they don’t have water, when is Ramadan, things like this. They were also checking for body tattoos, to see if you had a cross anywhere, and they would check your neck for jewellery. Our smuggler had told us before our journey to take off our crosses, and he showed us a video of 20 Egyptian Christians who had been executed. On one of their jeeps I saw stacks of orange clothes, and that is when I knew these men were Daesh, and I got very scared.
To be honest by this point I didn’t really care if I would die or stay alive. But when I thought of dying, my mum would come to my mind and I knew that if I would die it would also kill her, so I would do anything to stay alive for her. We watched all this from a distance at first until it was our turn. My friends and I were lucky because the militant in charge of our queue was careless, he just asked us quickly. Then they took 78 people away. I remember one lady, her name was Terhaz and she had a 2 year old daughter, she was one of the ladies who helped to take care of me on the journey. They took her also. And another boy who was my friend, we would often sleep next to each other. He was also taken. A few days later we arrived to Tripoli, and I saw my friend on the TV: Daesh slit his throat like a sheep. Most of the people they took were Ethiopian and Eritrean christians, if you look on google you will find it all over the news, and you will find the execution video. I knew all those people, a lot of them were my friends. It was our smuggler who showed us the video, he thought it was funny to scare us. I cried a lot and I couldn’t sleep for many days. I just thought about home, and I thought about my mum and I missed everything, I tried to remember her smell.
We spent a lot of time in big lorries, hiding behind transported goods, we had to keep silent at every checkpoint to get to the coast.We would hear of boats making it to Italy, and we would hear of boats sinking off the coast. And then we waited for 2 weeks by the beach. I remember looking at the big waves and thinking to myself: ‘How can I ever cross this big ocean’. But we were put on small boats, and the small boats brought us to a bigger boat. We were about 480 people. It was pitch-black in the middle of the night. Everyone on the boat was vomiting because we got so sea-sick. I was lucky because I was outside on top, but there were 200 people below deck cramped into the cabin, with only one small window. I saw big ships and I saw dolphins. But the boat was wooden, and we were overloaded with people, so the boat was starting to fill up with water for the last two hours of our journey. I think we spent about 14 hours on this boat before the Italian coast guards picked us up and brought us onto a big ship. They gave us some water, biscuits and the foil blankets because we were very cold and wet. The boat took us to Sicily.
PART 4/4
ALONE IN EUROPE
It was so nice in Sicily! It was May of 2015 and I was 14 years old by then. It was the first time in my life that I drank milk and ate delicious fruit and I loved it. Everywhere in Italy there is food, and people would always bring us good food - random old people or the churches would give us hot meals. I was sleeping outside, but I was never hungry. We were taken to the mainland and there we lived in Milan. But we didn’t get registered for asylum, the authorities just left us to live life on the street. So life was hard and my friends wanted to move on. I was still a kid and all I could do was follow them.
We jumped on the train to Switzerland where we wanted to ask for asylum. Sometimes they would check our tickets so we would jump off and wait for the next one. I was with four friends, and some others who I had met along the way, most of them were older than me and I looked up to them. They told me I would have an opportunity to study and have a good life in Switzerland. When we arrived the police there was speaking Italian so we actually still thought we were in Italy because we didn’t know they also speak Italian there. They strip searched us and then we were put in a camp, and from there we were moved a lot, into the German speaking part of the country and then again into the French speaking side. Our group was separated into different camps and I was alone again. When I had my initial interview there was an older woman who was translating for me, and she listened to my story. When I finished telling her everything that had happened to me she said: ‘No, our government would never do this.’ I think it was for this reason that my asylum request was rejected, because she changed my story, and I don’t know how she translated my interview. It goes to show how brainwashed Eritreans are, or it might be that she is actually still actively working and supporting the Eritrean government. I was a young scared boy and ignorant of my rights at the time. In my culture you have to respect older people so I didn’t dare to speak against her, and I didn’t dare to tell the interviewer that I wanted a different interpreter. It took many months before I would get an ID card to be able to move around.
This made me a little less stressed because I was finally able to travel and go see my friends. But it took nearly a whole year before I had my big interview and I told them everything about my journey and how I had arrived to Italy. Because of this my asylum request in Switzerland was rejected and I was told I need to claim asylum in Italy because that was the first European country I had set foot on. I was young and didn’t know the rules. I went to a lawyer but they didn’t really help me, they didn’t believe that I was so young. They objected to the ruling of my case, but it was overturned. I was put in a deportation centre. I was only allowed outside 2 hours a day. I was treated as an unaccompanied minor, but still I was to be deported back to Italy by myself. I spent 5 weeks there and I was very depressed because beside the 2 hours of airtime we were confined to our shared room all day. They would give us our meals through a food hatch in the door. I felt like I was in a proper prison again, and I thought back a lot to my time in the prison in Eritrea. We were given an allowance of £5 per day and they would deduct £1.50 for the electricity in your room. With the money I would have left I would buy cigarettes and I would smoke a lot. I never expected I would be put in a detention centre in a country like Switzerland.
I was put on a plane back to Rome. When I got off the plane there was nobody waiting for me and there was nobody to help me. I was back out on the street as a minor. But something inside me is lucky, because wherever I go I always meet people along the way who are good to me. People helped me to get to the bus station of Rome, and I took a night bus to Milan. There I knew where to find other Eritreans and Ethiopians. They helped me with food. But I had nobody, all I wanted was to be with my friends, so I knew which train I had to take and I took the same journey straight back to Switzerland. When I got to Zurich I called my friend and he invited me for food. After that I went back to the same camp in Kreuzlingen to give my fingerprints. “Oh my god, you are back!” they said when they saw me. I explained everything to the lady who was there and she rang the police. They came to see me and straight away they took me back to the same detention centre. I think they were fighting with the Italian authorities, because Italy did not want me back and they said I had no fingerprints there so they did not want the responsibility of hosting me.
After 7 weeks they released me back to the first camp and I stayed there for a while. During the week we had to stay inside the camp, but we were allowed to leave on weekends. So on the weekends I would go and stay with my friends, we would hang out and play football. After a few months the police showed up to my friend’s house. They broke through the door in the middle of the night and were shouting, they tried to make him feel scared. They were looking for me but I was staying somewhere else. They wanted to intimidate me so that I would leave Switzerland by myself, because they obviously didn’t know what to do with me. They wouldn’t give me asylum, but also they couldn’t send me back to Italy. After a few weeks they found me and they put me in prison again. I spent another 3 months at the same place whilst they were trying to deport me back to Italy. One day I was taken to the airport in Geneva, I was so stressed that I was physically ill and I was vomiting blood. I was taken to the hospital where they treated me. Still one week later, I was sent back to Rome again. The only people I cared for that were near to me were my friends in Switzerland, so I took that same train back again to Zurich. I was put in another camp, but when I was out some people in the camp warned me the police had come looking for me. And I was tired, and I told myself that this was enough.
I had another friend who had been rejected in Switzerland who went onto Germany afterwards. So my only idea of where to go was Germany. In Basil I jumped on a train to go to Frankfurt. My friend was waiting for me in Frankfurt but we couldn’t find each other. After 30 minutes I found an Eritrean girl and she told me “this is Paris’’. This is when I realised I had taken the wrong train, I was panicking a lot. The girl told me I should go to Calais, because I would meet a lot of other refugees and volunteers there. She gave me money and she helped me on a train there.
I stayed in the Calais woods for 1 week and it was just a case of hiding from the police and finding food. From there I went to Brussels following some other people. We would stay in a big park and sometimes volunteers would come to feed us. But it was very hard, especially for the women and children who were there. For one month I slept outside in the park. We tried to hide ourselves in the big lorries to get to England. Most of the time we were caught and sent back. One day I got lucky. I was with some friends when we managed to sneak on a truck at night that was carrying freight to the UK. It was transporting huge sheets of window glass. When we were going through the border checks we could hear them walking around the truck. I was so tired, and all I could do was pray to God that they would not open and check. Then I felt we were moving onto the ship and I breathed a sigh of relief when I felt we were sailing. We were so happy and chatting with each other.
On the other side, when we were driving for three hours on the highway, we cut a hole in the truck and waved our jacket so that the driver would see us. He pulled over at the next stop and we jumped out as soon as he stopped. We ran and found a train station and took a train down to London King’s Cross. We arrived in the night and we were so hungry because we hadn’t eaten in days. We found a group of other Eritreans and we told them we’d just come from France. They thought we were visitors and had come on holiday so they were so surprised when we told them about our journey. It was also the first time in a long while that we were laughing: we were so dirty, so skinny and so broke, it was funny to think that anyone could think we were coming on holiday.
The guys took us to McDonalds and I was so hungry that I ate three burgers. They then took us to their church to pray and sleep for the night. I couldn’t believe I was in England, I couldn’t believe I was seeing the red busses and all the sights I had seen on TV. We slept on the little pillows from the church pews and the next morning they took us to McDonalds again. Afterwards they gave us instructions of how to start our application with the Home Office. We had to take the underground and go to Croydon. I think I was in shock because of everything I had experienced, and also I couldn’t believe how they had made a train under the city, that was crazy to me. The noises and the crowds distracted me so I got separated from my friends when we got off in Stockwell. I can always tell the Eritreans and Ethiopians apart from everyone else, so I found another person who helped me get on the right bus and get off at the last stop. I met another Eritrean there in Croydon and actually, since then he has become my closest friend. He bought me food and took me to his home for a while. He was in foster care so I couldn’t stay with him. But also when I arrived to the Refugee Council it was closed.
I spend one night sleeping in the park on a bench. Once I had started my procedure with the Home Office, I was put in a foster care home, but after three months they took me for an age assessment and deemed that I was not under 18. They told me that with everything I had gone through and experienced, I would have to be an adult. I had three months to prove otherwise. It was very stressful, I was temporarily put in a hostel and they wanted to move me to Cardiff. But I wanted to stay where I was, close to my friends and close to the Eritrean community in London where I was learning and where I was going to church.
I told them that if they move me I would kill myself. I had enough at this point. They referred me to a doctor, and I was given medicine to help with my mental health. Actually the doctor inside the hostel was really good and she helped me a lot, she put me in touch with Zoe from Freedom from Torture who I saw and spoke to regularly. They wrote a letter for me to the Home Office about my mental state to persuade them to let me stay in London. It was granted, though they moved me all the way to Romford, which was so far away from Croydon. Later on I ended up in Hatfield. But I never really even slept there, I was always just staying in south London with friends. I have lost many friends along the way. Through accidents, through murder and also I have lost a lot of people I cared about to suicide. Because of our situation, the journey and the insecurity in which we live, I feel like we are always at risk of losing our life. I lost my faith in humans, I don’t think I can ever understand how cruel and violent people can be. To me, some people are worse than the devil himself. It has hardly been possible to stand up for myself, instead you have to bear all the humiliation and burn inside. Many of my friends killed themselves because we live with so much stress, trauma and insecurity. We miss home so much, we have worries about family back home and we don’t know what the future will hold for us. A lot of times I cannot sleep at night, I think too much. Sometimes we drink to try to forget, some people take drugs to avoid thinking. Two of my friends killed themselves. The police told me that Alex hung himself but I don’t think so, I actually think somebody killed him, but I will never know the truth. Another friend took his own life last year. His name was Mulin and he was suffering from PTSD. I helped to organise the memorial and the repatriation back to Eritrea for him. We did a fundraiser around the Eritrean community to raise the money to send his body back.
Some of the older people from the Eritrean community didn’t believe what we were raising money for, they still think that everything is great and good in Eritrea, but they have no idea what young Eritreans have been through, and they have no idea about what I saw in my home country. It’s the old generation who has killed my generation. Thankfully also a lot of people who attended the memorial were very kind and caring. When I was in touch with his family in Eritrea, I asked if they could find my mom and if she could send me my birth certificate, because the Home Office still didn’t believe that I was still a teenager. When I presented them with my birth certificate, which had come to me all the way from Eritrea, the Home Office said they couldn’t be sure that it was a genuine document. To be honest I was ready to give up at this point, because I could hardly see the point anymore in coming to Europe. I wasn’t scared to die and join Mullin, but when I thought of dying, my mum would come to my mind. And I know that if I would die it would also kill her, so I would do anything to stay alive for her. And despite everything that has happened to me I have kept my faith because I also met a lot of good people along the way who have helped me.
Like Greta, who helped me so much, she got me a good solicitor, and it is because of her that I am where I am now. She also found me a place to live in Croydon, with Amber and her husband Fred. I was a bit scared at first because I had never lived outside of my own community and my freedom was important to me. But when I arrived I was so surprised because they were so welcoming, and they immediately gave me my own key even though they didn’t know me at all. I got very attached to them. I fought with the Home Office for so long about my age, for more than 2 years, and they never even allowed me to go to court and receive justice. I told Greta to forget about the age assessment because I was tired from fighting and fighting. All I wanted at that point was just to get my asylum and get my papers, which thankfully I did.
Though I loved living with Amber, there was no chance for me to get my own place as long as I lived with them. So I had to declare myself homeless to Croydon council who put me in a hostel nearby where I lived for 6 months. After that I was moved to Upper Norwood in another hostel where I have been living ever since. This place is okay, but it doesn’t feel like home - it isn’t my own, I still have to abide by many rules and I cannot bring friends here. I have been here since 2017 and I’m still struggling and not living a full life. I want to have my own space to start my own life and work. I work for Deliveroo and Getir every spare moment I have, not just for the money but also because as long as I’m busy it means I don’t have too much time to think. I’m studying at college: English, Maths and next year I will start English level 1 at college. I want to become a chef because I love cooking, so I’m hoping to start on a catering course next year. I don’t want to take an apprenticeship in an Eritrean restaurant, because I already know those dishes. But I like to learn more about the different cuisines and try out new recipes and foods. And once I open my own restaurant, I want it to be international so that I can meet all kinds of people.
In a happy turn of events: my brother has also made it to the UK about 1 year ago. He also escaped Eritrea and spent a long time in Libya before making it here. With my lawyer we tried to get him here through family reunification, but it was so difficult, and he ended up coming by himself. I think it was 5 or 6 years since I last saw him. It was so strange because I actually don’t know my brother that well as he was in the military from a young age. In the army they broke his teeth and that’s when he decided to also flee Eritrea. Amber helped him a lot by finding an organisation to fix his teeth again for free.
I don’t even remember the last time that I spoke to my mum, it is so hard to get hold of her. In all these years I have been away I managed to speak to my mother only twice. Because when she was arrested they took her phone away and in Eritrea it is impossible to buy a new sim card without permission from the state. I managed to call her through a friend of a friend. When I heard her voice I saw her face before me straight away. Actually I couldn’t speak or find words to say to her, I could only cry whilst she spoke comforting words for me. I don’t know if I will ever see her again. Because for sure I will never be able to set foot again in Eritrea. I just have a small spark of hope that one day the president dies, and then maybe the regime will change, but that hope is very faint.
Regarding my father, I have no idea what happened to him or where he is or if he is even alive.
It was only when I saw what freedom looks like once I’d left, that I realised how dark my life had been in Eritrea. I still consider myself lucky, because I have good people beside me.
This is Haben’s story to September 2021.
He is still just 20 years’ old.
To be continued.
you’ve read. Now act.
You can support people like Haben by joining the forRefugees community and donating towards our work. With your help, we’ll continue making grants to our frontline partners, helping them provide emergency relief to people on the move.