I want to be­gin this re­fu­gee se­ries with...

hu­man­sof­ne­wyork:

I want to be­gin this re­fu­gee se­ries with a post from the sum­mer of 2014. This is Mu­ham­mad, who I first met last year in Ir­aqi Kur­di­stan. At the time, he had just fled the war in Sy­ria and was working as a clerk at my ho­tel. When war bro­ke out, he’d been stu­dy­ing Eng­lish Li­te­ra­tu­re at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Da­mas­cus, so his Eng­lish was ne­ar­ly per­fect. He agreed to work as my in­ter­pre­ter and we spent se­ve­ral days in­ter­vie­w­ing re­fu­gees who were fle­e­ing the ad­van­ce of ISIS. As is evi­dent from the quo­te be­low, I left Mu­ham­mad with the ex­pec­ta­ti­on that he’d soon be tra­vel­ling to the United King­dom with fake pa­pers. I am retel­ling the sto­ry be­cau­se I have just now re­con­nec­ted with Mu­ham­mad. He will be working again as my in­ter­pre­ter for the next ten days. But the sto­ry he told me of what hap­pen­ed sin­ce we last met is tra­gic.