Humans adrift
Eritreans, Iraqis, Kurds, Afghans, Romanians, Lebanese, Palestinians, Georgians, Colombians, Togolese, Kosovars, Senegalese, Serbs… There are more than 200 million people wandering the planet looking for refuge. They are running from war, dictatorship, persecution, climate change or simply misery and the absence of any sort of future. Many of them would like to settle in the West where there is peace, security and prosperity.
We are seeing legislation that is more and more restrictive in Switzerland like the rest of Europe permitting the detention and expulsion of undesirables by force. We are also seeing new laws that risk being xenophobic as well as useless since this influx is not going to stop any time soon. Never before have migrants tried with as much conviction and force to reach the European Eldorado. This conviction and force stems from desperation.
Whether they are illiterate or university graduates, most of these exiles wander the planet without papers, in conditions that are difficult for people who book their holiday in Sharm El Sheik with two or three clicks of the mouse.
Travelling alone with just a plastic bag as a suitcase or in families, tens of thousands of them manage to reach little Switzerland in the heart of Europe. They arrive with empty eyes and haggard faces in the aseptic offices of the federal office of migrations. They ask for asylum often without understanding what is happening and what they will have to endure. For non-Europeans this is the only legal way to settle in our country apart from marriage.
Day after day the map of suffering spreads its colours on the walls of these centres. Here for the next two months with their difficult past behind them and their uncertain future ahead they will have a bed, three meals a day, medical treatment and pocket money.
In the austere transit centres refugees get together in ethnic groups and keep their distance from the others. Here forced into idleness everyone waits in silence for the Swiss Confederation to decide their fate.
Fahad, Iraqi asylum seeker
During the summer of 2007, Fahad had to leave Iraq. He then fled through different countries. His boat sank near a Greek Island. The Cost Guard “saved” him. He then had to spend 21 days in jail because of “illegal journey”. When he finally got out, the prison guard told him to leave Greece. After such an experience and knowing that Greece almost never accepted Iraqi asylum seeker, Fahad fled through Europe and arrived in Sweden. According to the Dublin Convention, the Swedish Authorities gave Fahad a negative decision and tried to send him back to Greece.
Fahad decided then to ask for asylum in Switzerland. He arrived in November 2007 in the Reception Centre (CEP) in Vallorbe. He asked for asylum.
During the summer 2008, even as the Swiss Authorities and the Swiss Court recognized that Fahad was working as a translator for the US Army and that he was persecuted in Iraq, they decided to send him back to Sweden, according to their agreement with Sweden.
In December 2008, Fahad received a negative decision from the Swedish Authorities. Knowing that his life is in danger in Iraq he decided to come back to Switzerland.
Arriving in Switzerland in the beginning of the year 2009, he went to the Reception Centre and asked for asylum a second time. Fahad knew that Switzerland recognized a situation of general violence in South and Central Iraq and do not send people back there.
On month later, the Federal Office for Migration took Fahad from his room in the Reception Centre, gave him a negative decision and put him in a jail in Zurich. The decision said that Fahad was being sent back to Sweden according to Dublin Conventions.
For the people surrounding Fahad, the future was clear: a plane to Sweden meant a one-way trip to Bagdad, and then a certain death. From the date of his arrest to his departure to Sweden, almost every day, one media or another was covering the story of Fahad. He became really well known and many people from the civil society, Politicians, NGO, etc. took positions in favour of him being allowed to stay in Switzerland. A huge solidarity movement was created.
Despite this solidarity, Fahad was sent to Sweden where he has filed an appeal against the Swedish authorities decision. He is now waiting there to know if he would be allowed to stay in Sweden which is unlikely or if he would be forced to return in Iraq.
