Those who flee often have to leave almost everything behind. Here children and young people tell what they were able to save anyway. This time: Enajat, 15, from Afghanistan. He was on the run for six months and has been living in Munich for three weeks.
“Sometimes I put my hands around my neck and feel the necklace in my hand. I like to run my fingers over it because the metal links are so smooth. The necklace is the most precious thing I own. My mother put it on me when I left our village in Afghanistan. I was on the road for about half a year, fled from Afghanistan via Iran and Turkey to Germany. I left because my family is doing very badly in Afghanistan. We often didn’t know what we are going to eat the next day. We are also afraid of the Taliban because they are persecuting my ethnic group, the Hazara. Under their rule, my siblings and I could no longer go to school. I have three sisters and three brothers. Although I As I am not the eldest son, I was chosen to flee.It cost my family a great deal of money to send me on this journey and to pay people to help me and tell me about the sizes to bring ze. When I said goodbye to my mother, she told me that she loved me very much but had to let me go. So I can help them survive. I love my mother very much. She used to bring my favorite food to the tailor shop where I worked. It’s called Qabili Palao, which is rice with lamb. Now when I hold the necklace in my hand, I often cry. Now I’m in Germany and safe, but I feel very alone. And it hurts so much to see what is happening to my homeland. Especially now, in the cold winter, the people there are doing very badly, they are freezing and hungry. I’m also freezing because I don’t have any warm clothes for the winter. Or a cell phone to tell my family that I’ve arrived safely. At the moment I live in a home for refugee youth. I hope that I can go to school soon. Even if it’s hard right now, I’m sure everything will be fine somehow. Maybe the chain is a lucky charm?”