“When that first boat with her husband and children crossed the river, nobody was to be seen at the other riverbank. And then suddenly the military showed up. They took them. She heard screaming, but she could not hear what they were saying because it was too far away.”
— A.M. Syria

It was a very hard situation that the respondent was in. Her husband,  her one-month old son and her little daughter of three years old had been on a different boat than her, and had reached Greece. Her boat had not left Turkey. Every time when she remembers she starts to cry. It was so difficult for her. 

It happened on the 4th of June, 2018. Her husband crossed the river successfully with her two children. She stayed in a second boat behind at the other side of the river. When that first boat with her husband and children crossed the river, nobody was to be seen at the other riverbank. And then suddenly the military showed up. They took them. She heard screaming, but she could not hear what they were saying because it was too far away, and it was too dark to see what was happening [it was night]. And also, because her baby was taken away from her, she was not herself. When she saw the military showing up she was so scared, she was crying and could not see or hear what was happening. She just looked at her husband and children and was hoping that nothing bad would happen to them. From that moment, when they had taken him away – with her children – and all what after that happened, she does not know. They would meet each other again one month later.  

When her husband got caught by the military, she saw him. Those men who took him and her children away were dressed in black suits. And they were wearing masks. They had black masks. she could not see their faces. But because it was far and dark, she could not exactly see or focus on what color the uniform was. And because they had taken her children with them, she could not focus on what was happening. She just could see that they were men, and in dark, and wearing black masks. 

She saw how he got arrested and that they took him to the car. But after that, she doesn’t know what happened. She did not see any military thereafter on the riverbank. After they took her husband and the children, after they had taken them away, nobody was there anymore. 

She waited for them there, and waited, but nobody came. It was only when she met her husband one month later, only then she learned from him that the military members had promised him that they would bring her. That night, she slept at the other side of the river. She spent all night there, waiting for someone to come and/or to get another chance to make again the cross with that second boat over the river. But nobody came, and they were too scared to cross and feared that the military [at the other side] would show up again. So they had to stay the night at the riverside there. 

The next day, the people in her group and her went back to Istanbul. There were four guys in her group; two from Morocco, and two Kurdish from Afrin. She did not know any of them. But she had no money, since all the money was with her husband. She did not have any belongings with her, the clothes, the phone – everything was with her husband. She told One of the Kurdish guys who was with their group what had happened. And she asked him for his help. He gave her money, and after they separated from the others from the group, he travelled with her until they arrived in Istanbul. There she called her family with his phone and stayed with them. 

Because of her situation, she could not ask them [the other people in her group] if they also had been separated from people in that other boat. But she thinks that that guy who helped her had been separated from his family as well.

After that accident, she had to go back to Istanbul. There, she stayed with her family and she had to work a lot to get some money and to try again the river crossing to Greece. In this month, from the second day when she arrived at her family, she was continuously in contact with her husband. She called him from her father's phone on whatsapp and talked with him. And she was working, but it was so difficult for her. She had made one target in her mind. That she would work and try to meet them again and be with them in Greece. 

After 28 days she tried it, and walked for four days from Istanbul to the borders. She passed over another road, and it was hard, and difficult. They were walking every day for 10 or 12 hours and rested only for 30 minutes. They ran out of food, because they did not expect the journey would be so long. People started eating grass and tree leaves. They were drinking water from the river and most of them got sick. She was prepared; she had extra food and water with her. She took a little bit of it every day, so to not run out of water or food. she was sharing her food and water only with the children that were also in the group. 


Then they arrived at the river bank, and finally she crossed the border. It was a different place/point as from where she first tried to cross the river. The exact day she cannot remember, but she is sure that when they got caught by the police it was the 1st of July 2018. They were caught on the road when driving in a closed van that was planned by the smuggler to take them to Thessaloniki. The police took them to the police station not too far from the border, around a 30-35 minutes drive. They were wearing normal Greek police uniforms, light and dark blueish. She did not look at them, because she was scared that the same thing would happen as the first time. But they were so kind to them. They took them to the police station and there gave them food and water. The police station was outside of a village, surrounded by the mountains and hills. It was a four-floor building, where they put 4 to 5 persons in each room. There were already refugees there. We had 52 persons in our group. They were mixed Arabic and Kurdish people, but she was just communicating with 4 of them. They were also from Afrin. There they spent two nights, and thereafter being transferred to another closed camp. There they also spend three days, and when they had taken our fingerprints and they were given a police note, she went to Thessaloniki. And as such she came back to see her husband again. She finally got what she wanted – she made that crossing again to be reunited with her family.