(MENAFN- Khaleej Times)
Ever since its start, the refugee crisis has been demonstrated in numbers: The number of forcibly displaced people, number of injuries, and those who lost their lives on the way to searching for new life and hope.
Seldom do we get the chance to hear a story of how the life of a whole family could suddenly be flipped upside down. And that's where the story of 18-year-old Syrian Nujeen Mustafa comes in.
Born with cerebral palsy, Mustafa's remarkable story is based on her survival after fleeing from Syria to Germany (a 3,500-mile journey) on a wheelchair, with her elder sister Nisreen who's been her caretaker from day one.
Despite the tough journey and sacrifices, the teenager narrated her story in a powerful yet jovial manner
"I wish people can treat our crisis as more than just news reports. Syria no more reminds the Arab World of its great entertainment industry or food, but only brings to mind misery and pain," Mustafa told Khaleej Times on the sidelines of the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature where she came to promote the book she co-authored with Christina Lamb, titled Nujeen: One girl's incredible journey from war-torn Syria in a wheelchair.
Mustafa is one of over five million Syrians who have fled their country since the civil war began in 2011; more than a million have made the journey to different parts of Europe. A quarter of the refugees are aged 17 or under. She fled her home in 2014 when the city of Kobani was at the centre of fierce fighting.
Traveling from Turkish/Syrian border to the coastal town of Bodrum, they paid smugglers to take them on an overcrowded boat of 50 people to the Greek island of Lesbos. "It was my first time in the sea. And although you cannot have joy in such a situation, I smiled. I was about to wave goodbye to Turkey and I had this thought that this water might be my grave. It sounds plausible as you either die or get into an entirely new life in Europe."
Mustafa had spent most of her life in an apartment (too small for an aspiring astronaut) in Aleppo. Having never been to school, she said she wanted to feed her curiosity about the world, but the long journey to hope in Germany was filled with fear (see box).
The difficulty of settling
Although Mustafa said she feels lucky to have been granted a new life with a regular routine, there comes the difficulty of leaving one's hometown, especially in a state of destruction, and adopting a lifestyle and culture that is not your own.
Another responsibility lies in being a good representation of the Syrian culture. She said, "There's always this concern of whether what you're doing is accepted, but slowly you have to learn to do things the German way. Learning the language was difficult, but the ability to communicate made things much better."
Having derived science facts and English from TV, Mustafa moved from never attending school due to her disability to becoming a 9th grader at a school in Germany.
"It was scary as the type of education is quite different: now its teacher and homework. My sister had taught me basic math before, but it wasn't the challenge of keeping up with my class as much as the language barrier. I had to learn German as quickly as possible."
If her astronaut dream did not work, Mustafa's Plan B is to become a professional writer and tell stories. "I want people in Syria to know that someone is listening. I lived the war, which is more of emotional hell for people than physical because you're always afraid. The sound of bombing isn't so nice I tell you."
The difficult journey to freedom, hope
Nujeen Mustafa fled her home in 2014. She took a 14-hour ferry ride to Piraeus on the Greek mainland, followed by a bus journey across Macedonia to the Serbian/Hungarian border before reuniting with her brother Bland and sister Nahda in Germany
Sherouk Zakaria
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