Humanitarian assistance to Syrian refugees at Idomeni, Greece, August, 2015. Demotix/Giorgios Cristakis. All rights reserved. When ISIS arrived in Mosul, Fatima knew that her son, a policeman, was in mortal danger. With his children they fled to Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, a safer place for now but with little future to offer a displaced family. So Fatima set off on her own, on a tortuous journey in search of a better life for the family.
She flew to Istanbul, then made her way to the Turkish coast, straight into the hands of people smugglers. When the boat she was on reached the Isle of Lesbos there was no beach to land on so she and the other passengers were slung overboard to swim to shore. If it wasn’t for two younger men supporting her as they swam Fatima, in her mid 60s and overweight, says she would surely have drowned.
By the time she had reached the refugee camp at Idomeni in Greece, Fatima’s health was deteriorating. The staff of Doctors of the World who examined her had requested she be taken over the border to a hospital in Macedonia for treatment, and while she stood waiting for the ambulance to arrive, she told her story.
