Debate during the European Youth Event 2016 in Strasbourg on "Are refugees welcome?".&nbsp;Statements by Ashraf SARAWI and Jihad SULIMAN, young refugees.

Strasbourg

migration and refugees in Europe (T)

situation of Syrian refugees (T)

European Youth Event 2016 (T)

Are refugees welcome?: extracts from the EYE debate with Ashraf SARAWI and Jihad SULIMAN, young refugees

Views form the outside of the Parliament.

SOUNDBITE (English), Young NGO volunteer , As-salamu alaykum. You are very welcome in Europe.

SOUNDBITE (English), Young NGO volunteer , As-salamu alaykum: When I worked in a refugee camp in Kiosk. I witnessed the building of one of the hotspots detention centres, or what you would like to call them and I saw a process of hope, change to a process of despair. When they arrived first before the detention centres people were afraid but they were hopeful. They had what they needed they moved on. After the detention centres people were left in a situation with no enough information, they were not sufficiently saved or protected by the police, they were not even get enough food, water and these things are still going on. I witnessed with my own eyes and it made me wonder, have we as European Union perhaps failed ourselves in this instance regarding your core values. Today e have talked about democracy inclusion, tolerance, solidarity, peace and protection of human rights so I think we need to ask ourselves how we let ourselves down here.

SOUNDBITE (English), Young refugee, 15th march 2015 I lost contact with my mother for 3 days and then she called me she said 'I am in Turkey' , she went from Aleppo to Turkey, she walked 12 kilometres and she is 64 years old and she went to Turkey in illegal way because she couldn't t other way that was the only way. She send me out of Syria in 2012 because she said it is not save for you anymore, I was young and the age of war so she stayed there and she fight for 5 years in her house she even didn't want to move and she found that she must move and she moved. Are you telling me this woman is searching for job or better life? No, for sure not, she is not searching!

SOUNDBITE (English), Sarah MARDINI, young refugee, I left my country because I was running after my career as a swimmer and due to the war there in Syria there is no future there with swimming anymore. I decided to go in this journey with my little sister Aistra, she is 18 years old. Like everyone we took the airplane form the Damascus airport to get to Istanbul, turkey. After we arrived in Istanbul, Turkey we took the bus - which was organized by the smugglers - to Izmir Turkey. We stayed in the jungle for 4 days without any food or water, waiting for your turn to take the bout to Lesbos Island in Greece.

SOUNDBITE (English), Sarah Mardini, young refugee: Finally our turn came, we were 20 persons in a boat for 7 people: Me and my sister and one woman from Somalia and 17 men with a little kid. In the begging when I was in Izmir I said to my sister 'Okay if we draw down just swim. Do not safe anyone, do not care about anyone, just swim next to me and we will be safe.' In the begging everything was going well. After 15 minutes, the motor stopped. I saw tears in everyone's eyes. The voices started to be so lout and everyone was terrified. A man decided to go in the water. As a professional swimmer I used to work as a lifeguard in Syria in swimming pools so I decided to go in the water with this man. Everything was watching me as I am a woman what I would do for helping 17 men and everyone were making jokes about me. After 3 hours from swimming, trying and pushing we got to Lesbos Island in Greece. For me as a swimmer it was a horrible experience.

SOUNDBITE (English),  Jihad SULIMAN, Young refugees, I am a refugee, a second time. My grandparents they came from Palestine in 1948 and ever since they didn't get back, they moved to Syria, Damascus the capital, and we lived Yarmouk camp which is basically for the Palestinian refugees in Syria, in 2012 Yarmouk camp turned into a battle field between all the parties and afterwards as a result almost 6 hundreds thousand people out of all the population were out in one day. You cannot imagine this picture I will not forget it till the end of my life. Almost all of the people we had one highway there, you almost see only heads of the people. The street was full of people, elderlies, women; young people all of them carrying all just their bags or their sacks. Six thousand hundred people in one day we were out and now Yarmouk camp is occupied by Al-Qaida and ISIS till the moment.