Stories of Courage
In
Jordan's no-man's land, a new beginning for a talented, courageous
family.
A
self-taught artist, Yazin taught fellow residents in the
no man's land how to draw and paint.
UNHCR/A. Van Genderen Stort
I had hoped and hoped, but the
moment I heard I was going to Sweden, I could not believe
it, really. It suddenly made everything worthwhile."
Today,
Yazin's eyes shine with hope. At 29, he has spent almost
his entire life in refugee camps. Now he is one of a group
of 384 Iranian Kurds who have been accepted for resettlement
by Sweden, after spending a year and a half languishing in
the no-man'sc land between Iraq and Jordan.
Yazin was only
a child when his family fled the Islamic Revolution in Iran
and took refuge with relatives on the other side of the border,
in the northern Iraqi town of Sulaymaniyah. They stayed therefor
two years before moving to the refugee camp of Al Tash, close
to Baghdad.
The Al Tash camp was to be Yazin’s
home for the next two decades. At the age of eight, the little
boy discovered his own way of escaping from his grim surroundings:
he started drawing and painting. In the absence of any creative
classes or workshops, he had to teach himself to paint – and
painting was not a normal thing to do in those days: "People
here are just trying to survive, so why paint?",
they would ask him. But little Yazin knew what he wanted
to do, and he had both the will and the courage to follow
his dream. In fact, he became so good that many of the other
refugees started to ask for portraits.
Little by little, painting
became a way of life – and
offered a tenuous lifeline of hope. "It’s what
helped me through the difficulties of life for all those
years," he
says.
After the downfall of Saddam Hussein in
2003, like many of the 12,000 Iranian Kurds then living in
Al Tash, Yazin and his wife and their two children decided
to look for a better life elsewhere – but where? "I
did not want to return to Iran, because of my different political
beliefs," Yazin
says. "At the same time, after all those years, I had
no more hope in Iraq. As an artist, I felt my soul was dying,
surrounded by desperate people inside the camps." The
family chose Jordan. But they made it no further than the
no-man's land between Iraq and its neighbour.
This
time Jordan, despite having shown much hospitality to refugees
over the years, refused to let them in, and the group of
more than 1,000 people found themselves stranded in the noman's
land between the frontiers. It is nothing but arid desert – freezing
in winter, blazing in the summer, and blinded by frequent
sandstorms all year round. Truly, a place that only scorpions
and snakes find hospitable.
This desolate spot was to remain
Yazin's home for the next 18 months. Life had, yet again,
taken a turn for the worse, and yet again it was art that
kept him from despair. With the help of UNHCR and the international
non-governmental organization CARE, Yazin set up a studio
for artists and started teaching other refugees to paint
and draw. It provided an opportunity for all of them to unload
their misery and express their hopes. "It was a very
difficult time," Yazin
recalls. "I am grateful that I was given a talent, because
amidst all the misery, it allowed me to focus on my art."
Over
the past year and a half, UNHCR has advocated very strongly
for a solution to be found for the "lost" people
at the Jordanian border. But until recently, very few countries
had been willing to help the 1,048 people -- mainly Iranian
Kurds, but also some Palestinians, Iraqis, Sudanese, Egyptians
and others – who
are stranded there.
UNHCR has submitted some 880 cases for
resettlement in countries such as the United States, Australia
and the Scandinavian countries, and in June 2004, there was
good news for some: Sweden had accepted 384 cases for resettlement,
and Yazin was among them. It was a dream come true, especially
because his brother-in-law had emigrated there in 1997, and
the family had always thought of Sweden as "a free country,
without religious problems, without war, where people could
actually lead a simple and quiet life."
At the end of
2004 those accepted for resettlement were transferred to
the Ruweished camp in Jordan, where the Swedish government
conducted orientation briefings. Then, a few weeks later,
they set off to begin their new life in Sweden.
Yazin was
particularly excited about going to Sweden, because he wants
to continue his studies and eventually make a living from
his art. "I have found new courage to move on,
to start a new life, a real life. Going to Sweden saved me
from the no-man's land that was like a prison to me. I felt
like a disabled person there. I felt so impotent, not being
able to work or provide food for my family. I like to work
and support my family and one day, maybe one day, my paintings
will become famous, just like the Mona Lisa -- who knows?"
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