In English

In two weeks the siblings Cristian and Masarra will be forced to leave their home, friends, school, and the security in Sweden and instead being sent back to Iraq. After four years of uncertainty and multiple appeals to the Migration Board the decision came last Friday; Cristian and Masarra will be sent back to Baghdad in a couple of weeks.

Deported after four years - four years without any response

Last Friday, June 6, we had a meeting at the Migration Board in Stockholm. There, we learned that we should be deported back to Baghdad, Iraq. The things we know about Baghdad is what we read or watch in the news. The memories we have from Baghdad are old and poor, but according to the Migration Board, it is peace there.

Our names are Cristian and Masarra, 18 and 15 years old. The Swedish Migration Board believes that we can move back, they told us that we're not Sweden's problem anymore, we are supposed to manage by ourselves. That we will continue our life there as if nothing has happened to us in Sweden, or that nothing has happened in Iraq. We feel Swedish now after everything we've been through here in Sweden. We want to tell our story and hopefully get help to stay.

Here is our story,
We were six and eight years old when our father fled to Sweden in 2002. At that time we lived in Syria, the whole family, the six of us. Our father's intention was probably that the entire family should flee to Sweden. Our father stayed in Sweden a year but did not get a residence permit despite the war in Iraq.
Our father was a journalist on the newspaper and thought it was better to live in Sweden. 2003, the United States went into Iraq and the war broke out.

After quite some time living in war, our father thought that his profession as a journalist became to dangerous for us. We stayed at home most of the time except for school, it was dangerous all the time, and after eight at night, we did not go out. 2006 - 2007 was the worst time. In 2007 some people tried to kill our father because he was a journalist. Instead, they killed our uncle, they were very much alike. Our father never lived with our us during this time period.

This was when our mother decided that we would flee to Sweden. Because our father had told her that Sweden was good place for children. Our family had friends in Farsta outside Stockholm. They had lived in Sweden for quite some time but were originally from Iraq. It took us a month to get to Sweden. We fled with cars and boats. In the beginning we fled with people who spoke Arabic but gradually people were replaced. We lived on farms, cars and hotels. July 14 2008 we arrived at Bromma, Stockholm. There we met the family from Iraq. We went directly to the Immigration Service to seek asylum together with them.

At this time we lived in an apartment in Farsta. Everyone else was on summer holidays and we did not do that much. We watched TV, it was boring because we did not understand a thing. It was hot and bright all the time. We played football in the yard and played with the children. We learned some Swedish. After three weeks, we started at Kvickensstorpskolan. We began in “FK”, preparation class, with children from different countries. We got to know new friends quickly. We went in the preparation class for one year then we started in the 7th and the 8th grade.

In February 2009 we got the decision from the Migration Board that we could not stay in Sweden. Now a difficult period in our lives began and we move from Farsta. We were told that we had to move to Upplands Väsby, north of Stockholm. Where we had to change family to live with. We still attained the Kvickensstorpskolan, and travelled there by commuter train and subway. The most difficult with everything  was that we moved a total of eleven times, we lived all over the north of Stockholm.  

Finally we ended up in Spånga, in a foster home together with the entire Arab family. The social services decided that we should move to live in Norrtälje along with the family. It was difficult for us in this family. We ended up in Svanberga, Norrtälje. Here we stayed for a year and we started at a new school, the Lommarskolan. We continued to attain the 7th and the 8th grade thought we were a little older, because of all the moving we had been trough.

A year later, the social services determined that the two of us should live in a foster home on our own, we left the Arab family and moved to Roslagen .

We do not want to move anymore, we like it here. We want to stay here in Sweden because we feel more like Swedes than Iraqis, that is how we feel.