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Former Refugee Recalls Danger of Being Smuggled in Truck

Associated Press

   LONDON - Ahmad Al-Rashid knows whatthe sufferingwas like for the 39
   people who were found dead in the back of a truck in southeastern
   England this week.

   The 29-year-old Syrian refugee found himself gasping for breath inside
   a refrigerated shipping container with a group of migrants and a load
   of frozen chicken when a planned trip across the English Channel turned
   into hours of terror in 2015. The truck hadn't even left the French
   port of Calais when someone heard the cries of the desperate migrants
   and opened the doors.
   ``I was in their shoes. I knew the desperation of their last moments,''
   he said of the people who died this week. ``In my case, someone came to
   help me.[For them], all their screams were in vain.''
   Authorities are calling Wednesday's truck container discovery in a town
   near London one of Britain's worst human smuggling cases. Rashid said
   it brought his journey to the U.K., and its terrors, back in stark
   relief.

   'One hell to another'
   Rashid fled Aleppo in 2013, thinking he would return to his wife and
   two children in a few weeks. He first went to northern Iraq, where he
   taught English to other refugees. But the shooting and bombs followed
   him ``from one hell to another,'' so he finally decided to pay
   smugglers to help him get to Europe.
   The journey took Rashid from Iraq to Turkey and Greece, where Rashid
   said the smugglers opened a suitcase full of passports and gave him one
   from Bulgaria. From Greece, he traveled to Marseille in southern
   France, then on to ``The Jungle,'' a notorious camp outside Calais
   where migrants gathered in hopes of hitching rides to the U.K. until it
   was closed in 2016.
   Even after he almost suffocated in the back of the shipping container,
   Rashid recalled trying to get across thechannel until he finally
   succeeded, hiding in the back of a truck--but just a regular one that
   wasn't airtight.
   He was eventually granted asylum, allowing him to start a new life and
   bring his wife and children to Britain.
   In contrast to his own arrival, Rashid met his family at Heathrow
   Airport and drove them back to his apartment in the central English
   city of Derby.
   ``They could fly, you know, safely,with dignity,'' Rashid said. ``And
   this was the whole point for me making this journey, because it was for
   the sake of my family.''

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