Finding Home: Real Stories of Migrant Britain by Emily Dugan

Author:Emily Dugan [Dugan, Emily]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Autobiography, Biography, Emigration, Immigration, Non-Fiction, Personal Memoirs, Social Science
ISBN: 9781848319103
Google: pdSuCQAAQBAJ
Amazon: B00YADP904
Publisher: Icon Books Ltd
Published: 2015-07-01T23:00:00+00:00

It is September 2014, more than three years since his mum Nawal was forced to flee Syria. Now she is on the move again but this time, her journey could be fatal. Without a visa, Nawal would not be allowed even to set foot on a flight to Europe, so Emad found another way. After years of struggling to resettle her in Europe legally he decided to try boat smugglers. The last he heard from his mum was two days earlier, when she called him from a smuggler’s satellite phone while bobbing around in the middle of the Mediterranean. She was about to transfer to a smaller boat, ready to head into Italian waters. She had sounded frightened so Emad had made an effort to keep the conversation light. Nawal had told him, her voice cracking on the line: ‘If I drown you have to keep going on with your life.’ Trying to make her laugh, Emad replied, ‘Don’t worry, if you drown I’ll pick up another mum from the Sunday market.’ With no word since, he is now haunted by the idea that he could have sent his mother to her death.

The plan had been for Nawal to call as soon as she arrived in Italy. She had a smartphone so even if the phone signal didn’t work she would log onto wifi and send a message on a messaging app like Viber or WhatsApp. When it had been 24 hours with no news Emad called the Italian coastguard. The man who answered spoke in Italian but when Emad said ‘English?’ he replied almost fluently. Emad told him he was calling from the UK and before he had a chance to finish the sentence the man at the other end of the line said, ‘You want to know where your family are don’t you?’ When Emad said yes, he was friendly but explained they got a lot of similar calls and with an enormous ocean it was not easy to trace the ramshackle boats carrying refugees. Emad gave him the number of the satellite phone Nawal had called from but the coastguard could not get through on it.

Another day has passed since that call and Emad is so restless in his flat that he cannot keep his hands still, his mind racing faster than he can type words into Google. He has not slept and sitting on his sofa in a rumpled t-shirt and jeans he is chain-smoking roll-up cigarettes with one hand and typing into a keyboard with the other, his web browser up on his television screen. He is looking up ferries to France, hire cars and hotels. If she does make it to Europe alive, he expects her to arrive in Italy within days and he wants to be there to help. He keeps looking at online maps, zooming in and out of the Mediterranean, looking at what port might be a logical arrival place after sailing from Turkey.

His plan is to leave in a few

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