{"id":10,"date":"2020-06-19T20:53:00","date_gmt":"2020-06-19T20:53:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2020-07-31T14:47:59","modified_gmt":"2020-07-31T14:47:59","slug":"no-one-leaves-home-unless-home-is-the-mouth-of-a-shark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theteenagechronicle.com\/index.php\/2020\/06\/19\/no-one-leaves-home-unless-home-is-the-mouth-of-a-shark\/","title":{"rendered":"No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark!"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n
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\"amazon.in\"<\/a><\/figure>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n

A year ago I read this book titled ‘Refugee<\/a>‘ by Alan Gratz. It was a compilation of the stories of three children. A story of Joseph a jew at the time of Nazi Germany, a story of Mahmoud in Syria in the year 2015, and the story of Isabel, a Cuban from the year 1994. You must feel what was common between all of them? The trait which they all shared was that they were refugees! People who were so tortured that they finally decided to leave their motherland, where their forefathers and their forefather’s forefathers used to live. A decision not small but one with great consequences. “Refugees didn\u2019t just escape a place. They had to escape a thousand memories until they\u2019d put enough time and distance between them and their misery to wake to a better day,” said Nadia Hashimi<\/p>\r\n

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Warsan Shire
Source- britishliteratuecouncil.com<\/u><\/i><\/b><\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/tbody>\r\n<\/table>\r\n

When I read that novel, I came to know about the sufferings of these\u00a0 refugees, they lose their family<\/a>, their money, and at times even their\u00a0 lives.\u00a0<\/span>It is heartbreaking to learn about their sufferings. I couldn’t stop my tears, I learned about some of the many many misdeeds of us\u00a0 human beings. “No one puts their children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land,\u201d said the Famous British writer Warsan Shire. This statement which looks so simple shatters the whole point of humanity in a second!<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
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Source- actfordev.org<\/u><\/i><\/b><\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/tbody>\r\n<\/table>\r\n

Today is World Refugee Day. First marked in 2001, World Refugee Day is held every year on 20 June. Tens of thousands of people around the world take time to recognize and applaud the contribution of forcibly displaced people throughout the world. A very important day in the calendar. Because as the Tennessee Office for Refugees stated- \u201cTo be called a refugee is the opposite of an insult; it is a badge of strength, courage, and victory.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

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According to the data provided by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR<\/strong>), in the year 2020, 22,246 refugees arrived at several different countries through the sea, these include refugees and migrants arriving by sea to Italy, Greece, Spain, Cyprus, and Malta. Around 3,536 refugees reached their treasured destination through the land, these include refugees and migrants arriving by land to Greece and Spain. An estimate of 248 refugees were reported dead or missing! In the last 6 years, a big total of 19,388 refugees have been reported dead or missing!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
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Doaa
\u00a0Syrian refugee living in Greece<\/span><\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/tbody>\r\n<\/table>\r\n

Doaa is a 19-year-old aspiring student who was forced by the war to live a grinding existence with her family in exile. She somehow reached Egypt. One day, a motorcycle gang tried to kidnap her on the street. The war in Syria that drove her family away was in its fourth year. And the people who once welcomed them in Egypt had become weary of them. It was August 2014, and more than 2,000 migrants and refugees had already died crossing the Mediterranean that year. She didn\u2019t know how to swim, but for the second time in her life, she felt she had no choice but to flee.<\/p>\r\n

So her fiance Bassem paid his life savings to smugglers, $2,500 each, to get them onto an old fishing boat. It was so packed with people that Doaa\u2019s knees were bent to her chest.<\/span><\/p>\r\n

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After two days at sea, she started to get worried, and on the third day, she told Bassem: \u201cWe will never reach the shore. We will all sink. \u201dOn day four, another boat approached the vessel. It was rusty and when the passengers were ordered to get on, they refused. The smugglers left angrily and then returned to ram a hole in the side of the hull. \u201cLet the fish eat your flesh,\u201d they shouted, and then they laughed. Within minutes, the boat capsized and sank, with 300 people trapped below deck.<\/span><\/p>\r\n

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\u201cThe sea went black,\u201d said Doaa. \u201cI heard people screaming, and water crashing. I felt like I was going to drown.\u201d She watched the propeller cut a child to pieces. Miraculously, Bassem found a water ring. He held Doaa\u2019s hand and trod water. There were corpses everywhere. The 100 survivors came together in small groups and prayed for rescue.<\/span><\/p>\r\n

But as day turned to night and to day again, many lost hope.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\r\n

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Doaa watched as men took off their life vests and drowned. Sensing his end was near, a Palestinian approached with his nine-month-old granddaughter, Malek. \u201cPlease take the baby,\u201d he said. \u201cI am very tired.\u201d Then he gave up and let the sea take his life.<\/span><\/p>\r\n

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Soon after, Bassem had also reached his limit. His last words were, \u201cI am sorry my love. Please forgive me.\u201d He drowned before her eyes. Later that day, a mother struggled with Doaa with Masa, an 18-month-old girl. \u201cSave her,\u201d she said, \u201cI will not survive.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\r\n

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Doaa, the 19-year-old who could not swim, who had just watched her fianc\u00e9 drown, was now in charge of saving two fledgling lives. They were crying, agitated, hungry, and thirsty. So she told them stories and played with them. Another day passed, and then another. On the fourth day in the sea, Doaa saw a merchant boat. For two hours she shouted. They spotted her with searchlights in the dark and extended a rope \u2013 astonished to find a young woman clutching two babies. Finally, she was saved, Malek couldn’t make it but Masa still lives. Now Doaa lives in Greece trying to make a new life for herself, trying to forget her old scars.<\/span><\/p>\r\n

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Source- news.un.org<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/tbody>\r\n<\/table>\r\n
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Believe me, it is one of the many stories. Refugees die each day, each year, even if they survive they are considered as a burden over the nation where they take shelter. Was it Doaa’s fault that Syria got into a civil war? Is it a refugee’s fault that he has to suffer so much that he sees death as a better option than to stay where he is? If it is then I do not trust in humanity. We at times feel that our life is full of pain, but believe me, the world is filled with pain and suffering, and that too of such extent that you wouldn’t even dare imagine. \u201cRefugees are not terrorists. They are often the first victims of terrorism.\u201d said the ninth Secretary-General of the United Nations Ant\u00f3nio Manuel de Oliveira Guterres. He was the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees from 2005 to 2015.<\/div>\r\n

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I say learn from refugees, they go through so much trauma and pain in life, but they still continue to live, in a hope that one day the sun will rise which will bring the brightness of happiness in their lives! \u201cRefugees are mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, children, with the same hopes and ambitions as us\u2014except that a twist of fate has bound their lives to a global refugee crisis on an unprecedented scale,\u201d said Khaled Hosseini<\/span><\/p>\r\n

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