I left Somalia in 2013. I was 16 years old by then.

I have been to several European countries; Italy, Belgium, Sweden and France. I was fine elsewhere. I experienced the real hardships here, though. At first I went to Libya, then Italy, in November 2013. There it is not a European country, there they are all racists, they treated us like statues. Even the police won’t help you. They put us on a bus and took us to the countryside. We are not like migrants, they treat us like niggers, like slaves. They make us work. We were 7 and we had the chance to escape. There are people, trees, animals. Afterwards I was very sick and I told myself that I had to leave there. I went to Sweden. I paid a smuggler who offered me to go either to Germany or to Sweden. In Sweden they told me to go back to Italy because I had given my fingerprints there. I stayed 6 months in Sweden. That was in 2014.

Then I went to Belgium where I spent a year and a half. I was in Liege. I applied for asylum in Belgium but I got a negative answer.

I was educated in Belgium. After a year and a half, the administration rejected my file. I lived well in Belgium. But they waited until I was 18 and they gave me a negative review.

I returned to Sweden by bus. And I stayed 1 year without declaring myself. I was living with a Swedish woman who helped me, an elderly lady. In Sweden the control is very strong which makes impossible to work, I stayed for a year without doing anything. In Sweden I was in Opsale, it’s a big city like Marseille or Toulouse. I spent three months in a mosque and after a while a white but Muslim Swede introduced me to his elderly and sick aunt so that I could help her and take me in. She gave me some money and I saved. I had nothing to do, I was learning the language at the same time.

Then I called my father in Somalia and he told me to go to France.

I went to Paris. I was at the Chapel, in a garden for three months. Before, I don’t give myself up without trusting, after they advised me (people who slept on the street, other migrants) to go to another city in France. In Paris there were too many people. It was in March 2017. I went to Nice then to Marseille.

…and a Marseille wandering

I applied for asylum in Marseille. They gave me an appointment. The first time I went to the Prefecture, I didn’t know where to go. The Prefecture told me it’s was not there to ask for asylum, they gave me the map to go to the Asylum Platform. I went there and they told me to come back the next day because they take 15 people a day, I was 30th and I had to come back the next day. I went back and told my story; they gave me an appointment to go to the Prefecture, 25 days later.

They took my fingerprints and told me that I had to go to Italy. I spent 1 month and after 3 months, all 4 months under Dublin Procedure they passed me in normal procedure.

Adnan had been taken his fingerprints in Italy in 2013. There was no legal reason to place him under the Dublin Procedure because the responsibility of the State falls if there is no fingerprinting within 12 months.

It was in July 2017 that I was placed in normal procedure. I did the OFPRA file, an assistant who works at the Platform helped me fill out the file, there was a translator in Somali to explain my story well. Now I am waiting for the convocation for the OFPRA.

Why they won’t let us work? As human beings we do not understand why we are not allowed to have a decent life.

I have two Somali friends who went back to Italy because they couldn’t stay here on the street. I would rather die than going back to Italy.

I receive money from the OFII. Every 5th of the month. When I was under Dublin Procedure I got 158 euros every 2 weeks and now that I am in normal procedure I have 345 per month.

Hotels are 500 euros per month… Me, what I want is to be safe and quiet; even if you find a place to sleep, I give all the money I have on me to be safe and quiet…

In terms of eating there are places where you eat, I go to the nuns on the boulevard National… eating there is no problem, it’s not complicated. At the Platform they told me to go to the Refuge but there it’s just coffee… I don’t go there anymore; I’m going to have coffee at SOS Voyageurs, at the Saint-Charles station.

I send money to my mother…my family in Mogadishu, with my brothers and sisters. My father is dead. We have 5 presidents, only one country and 5 presidents… the problems are not people, it’s politics! Each tribe has a fighting group; if a person wants to know you there, they will not ask your name but what tribe you come from. It’s been like this since 1991… I wasn’t born when it started but now…

In Libya, like a slave

In Libya I wanted to die…they tied me to the foot with an iron (he shows us his ankle with the trace of the iron wounds…) they made me work like a slave…they put me in prison because I had no money to pay for my freedom…I worked like a slave…now when I see a Libyan I’m scared…they hated me so much that I’m afraid of them…

I’ve changed… I’m not the same person anymore… I’ve been through so many things that I haven’t had 24 hours of joy for years… I would like to forget: it hurts when I talk about all this, and when I talk to someone about all this it hurts too, but not as much as me…

Nine months on the street…

Now I’m waiting for the interview at OFPRA but I feel very weak to talk about all this again…

I would like to tell everyone that you have to treat people the way you want to be treated yourself. We are human beings too. This earth is big and there is a god and why we are not all equal, there are people who die, people who are rich, others who are sick, why we are like that…

Here I arrive, I am outside, I have no family… one day I went to the OFII, I was too sick in the head, I told them send me back to my country, I want to die, they answered me that they couldn’t because I come from a country at war… but here I am in the street… they don’t care… I’ve been here for 9 months, that I have no one and they don’t care, they just kicked me out. They told me “you’re young, you can get by”… They also said that it’s the families who have accommodation…

This jacket was given to me by SOS, I have had my shoes from Libya… In Manba they gave me clothes…

We ask him if he has the RTM bus card – free                transport – he is not aware that it exists. He                    does not have it when he is entitled to it because            he has been in Marseille for more than 6                          months…

I didn’t know I had that right…it would do me good to be able to move a little, it would change my mind…