World leaders are guilty of a “shocking failure of leadership” over the global refugee crisis, Amnesty International has said, in advance of a march across London on Saturday expected to be attended by thousands of people.
Before the Refugees Welcome march, some have told their stories to the Guardian, including a young man who describes his journey from Afghanistan to the UK as more torturous than seeing his family and friends murdered at home, and a woman sentenced to 74 lashes and 91 days in prison in Iran for protesting at the death sentence given to a spiritual leader.
The march will take place two days before the UN Summit for Refugees and Migrants, after which Barack Obama will host a meeting to appeal to leaders to agree to specific commitments on helping refugees.
But Kate Allen, the director of Amnesty International UK, said that instead of being ready to announce steps to end the crisis, “world leaders have been engaged in a race to the bottom, prioritising narrow self-interest over the rights of some of the most vulnerable people on the planet and trying to outdo each other in hostility and obstruction”.
The day before Obama’s meeting, the prime minister, Theresa May, will join leaders of UN member states in New York, where they are expected to adopt an agreement on responding to the global refugee crisis.
The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, had put forward proposals on sharing responsibility, but in discussions before the summit, the EU and governments including Russia and China removed the requirement to take in specific numbers of people. This, said Allen, “renders it toothless”.
There are 21 million refugees in the world today, according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), of whom only 14% live in developed countries. Ethiopia, Kenya, Jordan, Lebanon, Pakistan and Turkey collectively host a third of the world’s refugees, though they account for just 1.6% of the world’s economy.
Sabir’s story
Sabir Zazai was 23 when he finally made it to the UK in 1999. With few possessions and just the clothes he stood up in, he wasn’t sure exactly what had happened to him. “The way we were trafficked, we didn’t see much,” he says.
Zazai had no choice but to leave his home in Kabul. “Our neighbours were murdered, my family home was bombed and my beautiful city was reduced to rubble when the mujahideen came in 1979. The firing was indiscriminate and my family had no choice but to escape to Jalalabad.
“The journey was terrifying. Civil war has a domino effect. When you start dividing people over religion, the next step is to pick on those from a different tribe or who speak differently. On our journey out of Kabul, with bullets chaotically fired from outside, passing through our car, we were stopped at least 10 times and questioned. Each one of those times, a small mistake could have led to us all being killed. It was a nightmare.
“When we arrived in Jalalabad, we lived in a tent in a refugee camp. There were 15 of us. There was no water, sanitation and almost no food. It was appalling, but the situation has got worse since then. There are now 1.2 million people internally displaced in Afghanistan.
“But even under such dreadful conditions, we didn’t want to leave our country. We wanted to return to Kabul, but the violence there just kept getting worse. Then in 2001, after the September 11 attacks, the Americans attacked and the Taliban began forcing all the young men to fight.
“My family risked everything to smuggle me to Pakistan but even there, I risked being sent back so I flew to a central Asian country, possibly Uzbekistan – I’m not sure – then walked and hid in cars and lorries, for 12 months to get to Belgium, where I was smuggled into Dover.
“The whole journey was horrendous. The traffickers gave us drugs to keep us quiet. When children cried, their parents were beaten as punishment, and we were often left by the smugglers, hiding in boarded up houses, for weeks at a time.
“I had thought the conflict in Afghanistan was bad, but the escape from it was absolutely terrible. Then once I arrived in the UK, the treatment by the Home Office was torturous all over again, the disbelief, the stigmatising, the waiting.”
After he arrived in the UK, Zazai was sent to Coventry. He studied for a degree and in 2008 was given British citizenship. Now director of the city’s Refugee and Migrant centre, he is also a key player in City of Sanctuary, a nationwide support network for refugees.
“The march is important because we need to put a human face on the refugee crisis,” he says. “People need to understand that refugees are just like them, that anyone living in torment and violence will strive to get their family and children to safety.”
Sara’s story
The student of a spiritual leader in Iran who was imprisoned for his beliefs, Sara Saei, was arrested in 2015 during protests for his release. She was sent to Gharchak prison, where she was held alongside murderers and other dangerous prisoners.
In February this year, she was found guilty of disrupting public order and sentenced to 74 lashes and 91 days’ imprisonment. “I was terrified. If you go into prison in Iran, you don’t necessarily come out alive,” she says. “I fled to the UK. I arrived illegally without a passport. It was very stressful, especially in Turkey where the government cooperates with Iran. It took one and a half months before I landed at Gatwick and could claim asylum.”
While Saei applies for refugee status, she volunteers at Amnesty and studies for her maths and English GCSEs. She shares an eight-bedroom flat with 10 people in east London. “It’s really hard not being allowed to work,” she says. “I want to do a masters at university and contribute to this country.
“This is a wonderful country. I’m still amazed by how freely people can express their religion and opinions. This is a dream for people where I come from.”
• A section of this article was removed on 16 September 2016 pending further accuracy checks.
