Mohammed’s Journey: A Syrian’s long quest for a normal life

At the edge of a Balkan vineyard, Mohammed al-Haj lay down under a tree to collect his thoughts. Come nightfall, he and the other Syrians with him would make a run for it, past the fence of chain-link and barbed wire being built along the Hungarian border to keep them out, past the armed border guards. It was a make-or-break moment in a journey across a continent. In the last few hours, he’d cased the border, planning how they would make their dash through the fields from Serbia into Hungary. His mind was racing. Had he missed anything? His vision drifted up to the late afternoon sky, crisscrossed by the white streams of passenger jets. He watched one plane go by, then another, then another. Full of normal passengers on normal voyages. He thought of the life he was certain he would reach, in Germany. “One day soon, I’ll travel by planes like those,” he mused. The dream of normalcy after a life destroyed by Syria’s civil war had sustained the 26-year-old throughout his journey. Across the Aegean Sea where others like him had drowned. Through miles of walking under hot sun. Through rain and muddy fields, crowded train stations and long bus rides, lack of sleep, confusion, impatience, exhaustion, fear and anger — the constant barrage of every emotion, except one. Never despair, never a moment of despair or surrender. Mohammed’s voyage was part of an historic movement of humanity as more than 600,000 migrants this year have crossed land and sea, seeking sanctuary in Europe. Countries there have been struggling to cope with the biggest wave of migration since World War II. Their shifting policies and the ensuing chaos have forced migrants to find new routes to northern Europe, where even the richest nations are now signaling that they want to deter what they view as an unwanted overflow of migration. Like most, Mohammed was desperate to escape war. His journey, followed by The Associated Press, chronicles the deeply personal aspirations that drove him and many others. He was convinced he deserved better than a life trapped as a refugee in Turkey, where many of his compatriots hang on the hope of one day returning home. Pointing to the future of Europe as it absorbs the wave of migrants, he wanted to be a productive part of society. And most of all, he wanted his dignity back. “At least in Europe, I will feel that I have rights.” The light began to fade over the vineyard. Mohammed readied his companions. A father and daughter from the Syrian province of Aleppo. Two Syrian doctors. A 16-year-old, Abdul-Rahman Babelly, the younger brother of Mohammed’s best friend from Aleppo who’d been entrusted to him to take to Europe. The dusk deepened. Light enough to see their path, but dark enough to slip away unseen, they began to walk. Ahead of them were the railway tracks, the cornfields — and the border guards. If they eluded them, the road to Austria and on to Germany would be wide open.