Beyond Borders: Seeking safety in Sweden and Germany

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 26 May 2019

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For over five years, British-Lebanese journalist Zahra Mackaoui has been following the stories of a group of Syrians, who have scattered across the world in search of safety. She originally met and interviewed them in the early years of the long-running civil war in Syria.

Zahra travels to rural Sweden to meet Doaa Al-Zamel, who survived the sinking of a boat in the Mediterranean by floating on an inflatable ring. Her story has now been optioned for a film by Steven Spielberg. Also in Europe, Fewaz and his family have found refuge near Bremen – and though he is grateful for Germany’s hospitality, he is finding it difficult to integrate. She ends the series with Faysal, who escaped to Turkey before returning to his home city of Kobani in Syria. The war there has finished but danger remains – and he himself was critically wounded.

(Photo: Doaa al-Zamel. Credit: Elena Dorfman, Archive: UNHCR)

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm just going to call a leg, it's close,
0:04.0	it's not, it's in Stockholm.
0:05.0	It's in Stockholm,
0:06.0	and we had the market that it's internet.
0:08.0	In 600 meters, turn left on to Swartvix-Gaton.
0:12.0	I'm just driving now into the village of Hamadale in Central Sweden. It's actually more of a hamlet than a village. I think the population is about just over a thousand people predominantly retired. I think I can see a
0:26.0	poster there for bingo which is probably the main entertainment and now it's the
0:31.0	height of summer so daylight almost 24 hours, well apart from three hours between 11 and 3 where the sun goes down a little bit.
0:41.0	So not the easiest place to do Ramadan.
0:44.0	You're listening to Beyond
0:51.0	You're listening to Beyond Borders with me,ahramakawi on the BBC World Service.
0:55.0	I'm a filmmaker and for five years I've been following the Syrian Trail of Exile across the world. Just like in our first episode, I'm going to ask
1:07.4	you to think about the agonizing decisions they've been forced to make. As you listen, ask yourself what you would have done.
1:15.0	Okay. So we're sitting down now to bring the fast. They're going to break the fast.
1:21.0	One family I've come to know well is that of 23 year old
1:24.9	Dual Zamin. The al Zamels are originally from Darah which is the birthplace of the revolt.
1:30.8	I said to them they chose the hardest country to do Ramadan and
1:34.3	Duas mom said yes we didn't know. After Duas father's barber shop was bombed the
1:39.6	family fled to Egypt. There's a vegetable soup now this family of six are living in this small two bedroom apartment in the sleepy village in Central Sweden.
1:50.0	In 2015 the numbers of refugees and migrants making the perilous
1:57.0	journey across the Mediterranean Sea dramatically increased. At the time I was hearing so many tragic stories but it was Duas's tale of survival
2:06.6	against the odds that made the biggest impression on me.
	...

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