Profile of a Refugee: Ahmed

At the age of 19, Ahmed was a promising university student from an affluent family.
At the age of 22, Ahmed is now a refugee sleeping on a concrete floor behind a bus station.

This is Ahmed.

He fluently speaks Farsi, Arabic, Urdu, French, English, and is learning Serbian. However, he didn't want to tell me what he was studying before he fled Iran because he hopes to continue his studies when he becomes settled.

When I asked him where it was that he wanted to 'settle', he answered, "Anywhere that will take me; France, Italy, maybe even Serbia." Throwing in a charmingly cheeky smile at the end of his response, one that could have radiated positivity even in the dreariest of conditions.

He invited me into the second warehouse building, where he was staying with his "brothers", and explained to me that these are people from all walks of life: "An Afghani doctor sleeps next to a Pakistani shop keeper, and cooks dinner with a Syrian lawyer." They put politics and nationalism aside for the sake of survival.

These boys were cooking chicken, barely enough for the four of them, and they invited Ahmed and I to join.

However, Ahmed says this isn't always the case when "tribalism and classism", as it's been coined several times, come into play. There have been instances, in other warehouse buildings, where people refused to sit around the fire with someone who is of a different nationality or social class. One young boy, who told Ahmed he was 13 years old, sported a bandage on his head from "a fight with a brother."

There that word is again: Brother. Ahmed comes from a relatively large family, with four sisters and two brothers, none of whom are with him. Yet, this experience has created such a bond with some people, that they consider each other a renewed family now.

For instance, Ahmed had plenty of chances to continue his journey further into Europe, yet has remained in Serbia for 3 months. He says that many refugees in the warehouses don't speak English or Serbian, and he fears that someone may take advantage of them if he leaves. Especially the underage children who are too afraid to go to the camps, because they believe them to be "closed camps," meaning that they won't be able to get out later and keep moving throughout Europe.

These types of camps do exist, in part, but they are predominant in EU countries, which Serbia is not. Therefore, all of Serbia's camps are voluntary and, unlike its EU neighbours, Serbia can not force refugees to enter the camps.

Another they don't want to go to camps is because most of them came alone, and they think that camps are more geared towards families and women; which, in some part, is true. This is the reason Ahmed gave for not going into a camp. He believes that if he enters a camp, he will be taking resources that could have been used by a woman or child. Which Ahmed believes would be a waste because he can provide for himself outside the camps, and they can't.

Ahmed reiterated, several times, that he doesn't want to leave his new family behind, since he has already lost his first one to war.