Jamila recounts her escape through Syria, Gaza, Egypt and Libya.
Jamila* fled with her Palestinian family as a child: from Syria to Gaza and then Egypt, and finally back to Syria. As an adult, she headed through Libya across the Mediterranean, where she was rescued by the crew of the Humanity 1 in July 2024.
[Content warning: Death]
*To protect the person, her name has been changed and she is not portrayed in the photos.
Syria 1
I come from a Palestinian family of nine people. In Damascus, we lived in an area called “Palestine Camp”, inhabited by Palestinians who were displaced after the Six-Day War in 1967. My father worked in construction until I was two years old, that’s when my father had a work accident that caused him to lose his sight. Our situation became very difficult, so my father decided to return to Gaza.
Gaza
My siblings and I were young children from a poor family with a blind father. In Gaza, people could not sympathize with us or help us because everyone was already suffering. The normal, daily reality, for everyone, was struggling with the difficulty of economic conditions and the density of the population. Even necessities like food and water were hard to find. It was considered shameful for a woman to work, so my mother stayed at home, and my blind father could not work. My siblings and I started collecting plastic and aluminum from the streets and dumps for recycling and manufacturing. However, at that time, Gaza was under Israeli military attack, so we paid some bribes and left Gaza towards Egypt.
Egypt
In Egypt, we were caught and imprisoned for more than twenty days because our entry was illegal. After someone paid for our release, we lived in a poor agricultural area, and only my brother worked. My mother asked my father to return to Syria, where her family and siblings all lived and could help us secure jobs and a livelihood.
Syria 2
We lived in Yarmouk Camp in Damascus until the Syrian revolution erupted in 2011. Yarmouk Camp was heavily besieged by the Syrian regime because it was area controlled by the Free Syrian Army. Daily and continuous airstrikes targeted the camp, and you would see bodies and injuries everywhere, and you would hear calls through mosque loudspeakers that urged people to donate blood.
That year, I was studying to obtain my high school certificate. On one of the last exam days, I was shot by a sniper and injured in my hand while trying to signal to the checkpoint, that I wanted to exit the camp. Getting food and water became almost impossible. Those of us besieged inside the camp began eating weeds from the fields and gardens or entering abandoned houses where the residents had died or fled, searching for any leftover food or anything to eat.
I volunteered with the Red Crescent as a nurse. However, the Syrian security forces arrested the doctor, a nurse and other colleagues. At that point, I stopped working and told my family that I needed to leave Syrian territory, as I was at risk of being arrested. At the age of twenty-eight, I traveled from Syria to Lebanon by car, and from Beirut to Egypt by plane. From there I traveled to Libya.
Libya
A smuggler took me by car, with nine Syrian young men, I was the only woman, across the desert to Tripoli. During the journey, we were stopped at Libyan military checkpoints, and I was frequently harassed by the soldiers. In Tripoli, they placed us in a warehouse and took our phones.
I told him I would kill myself if he tried, to which he responded that he didn’t want to rape me but to marry me legally. They moved me to another warehouse with ninety men, and I was the only woman. I spent three days there, crying. The place was a large, unfinished house in the desert with no doors, windows, flooring, electricity, or any facilities. The men were mostly half-naked due to the extreme heat, and I was alone among them.
First attempt
After that, they put us in a boat, stacked on top of each other, and set sail at midnight on June 14, 2024, the night of Eid al-Adha. I was the only woman among all the passengers on the boat. The smugglers placed a sheep on the boat, which we later found out was a gift for the Libyan Coast Guard for the holiday, to bribe them to let us continue the journey if they intercepted us. From the moment we set sail, water started seeping into the wooden boat. But less than an hour into our journey, a plane spotted us, then the Libyan Coast Guard came and brought us back to shore.
They put us in a prison, yelled at us and called us terrible names. The young men were beaten in front of me, and I couldn’t stop crying for them, while I was also scared. They took everything from them—their papers, money, and phones—so they couldn’t contact anyone or escape from the smugglers’ grip. Then the UNHCR came to visit the prison, and I pleaded them to help me. They did help, transferring me to a hotel in Tripoli.
Rescue
One of the smugglers contacted me and told me about a guaranteed trip for $2200, claiming they had arranged with the Coast Guard to ignore this trip and that the boat would only carry 75 passengers. Determined to leave, I decided to take the next boat trip regardless of the cost. I boarded the boat that you found us on, and this time, there were other women on board.
The journey on the boat was not easy. Water was leaking into the vessel, and the motor broke down several times. Ultimately, we continued our journey until you found us. I feel like I have started a new life, or like I have been given a second chance. I feel that everything I went through no longer matters.
Now I will go to Germany, and I will try to bring my mother and sister. They are living in Egypt now, and I will try to bring them legally without making them go through what I did on my journey here. I will also try to continue my studies if I can obtain my nursing certificate from the Syrian Red Crescent. Inshallah I will bring my mother and sister to Europe.
But I do not recommend anyone, man or woman, to go through Libya. What I went through was one of the hardest things in my life. Even among the young men, I constantly heard their cries; I do not wish for anyone to experience what we did or to come through Libya.
[This interview was conducted by Lukas Kaldenhoff, Communication Coordinator, and translated from Arabic.]
