{"id":634,"date":"2017-03-18T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-03-18T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.britishasianchristians.org\/full-previous-archive\/2017\/03\/18\/numbers-of-asylum-seekers-sailing-through-mediterranean-sea-from-turkey-reduces-but-people-smuggling-continues-despite-6-billion-eu-payout\/"},"modified":"2023-04-30T05:30:20","modified_gmt":"2023-04-30T04:30:20","slug":"numbers-of-asylum-seekers-sailing-through-mediterranean-sea-from-turkey-reduces-but-people-smuggling-continues-despite-6-billion-eu-payout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.britishasianchristians.org\/full-previous-archive\/numbers-of-asylum-seekers-sailing-through-mediterranean-sea-from-turkey-reduces-but-people-smuggling-continues-despite-6-billion-eu-payout\/","title":{"rendered":"Numbers of asylum seekers sailing through Mediterranean Sea from Turkey reduces but people smuggling continues despite $6 billion EU payout"},"content":{"rendered":"

Image of centre operated by a local church that helps asylum seekers with food and counselling.  <\/strong><\/p>\n

British Pakistani Christian Association Chairman, Wilson Chowdhry travelled to Greece after receiving reports of a growing number of Pakistani Christian
\nasylum seekers in Athens. <\/p>\n

Hilda Orr a long term friend of the BPCA who met with Wilson during a visit to speak at a conference in Belfast, and who then joined our first ever protest
\nin Belfast shared concerns about Pakistani Christian asylum seekers who were homeless and destitute.<\/p>\n

Hilda is a long term volunteer in Greece on a self funded programme linked with a church in Greece.  The volunteer experience is designed to help
\nasylum seekers in Greece where numbers have reached phenomenal levels.  Greece is a target for many asylum seekers as access via sea from Turkey has
\nbecome relatively easy and regular.<\/p>\n


\n
Images of the centre on the window can be seen the word ‘Hope’.<\/p>\n

The group provide uncooked food parcels, advise and support, temporary shelter in some cases where volunteers seek the funding and act as a base for fellowship.
\nHilda has been out there for the last three months and this was not her first long period serving in Greece.  <\/p>\n

The group tries to create as normal a life as possible for volunteers and asylum seekers and as it was St Patrick’s day the Irish contingent of Hilda and
\nher daughter planned a night of Irish Jigs and stews.  The Irish Jigs were a little hard for some of us so it became a night of cultural dance which
\nwas probably the most exciting night many of the asylum seekers had had for a long time – mainly because of Hilda’s stew of course!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Although accommodation for volunteers is very raw with many sleeping on floors or sofa’s unless they are able to yield enough donations for a shared flat,
\nthey seemed very accepting. The commitment of these volunteers was evident to see and they all had a good rapport with the asylum seekers.<\/p>\n

One Muslim couple that regularly attend the help centre have decided to follow Christ and have already started Baptism classes. Hilda has requested forty
\nUrdu Bibles for Greece to give to the Pakistani Christians she knows of without the Gospel in their own language.  BPCA is now printing bibles in
\nPakistan but to ship them across to Greece will cost \u00a3220 and we are seeking help for these transport costs.  If you would like to hep with a donation (click here)<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

She invited Wilson Chowdhry of the BPCA to travel to Athens to see what help they could give to a visibly growing number of struggling Pakistani Christian
\nasylum seekers. <\/p>\n

On the first day Hilda introduced Wilson to two Pakistani Christian Asylum Seekers. Haroon Maqbool (39) and Tariq Iqbal (29), who had become close friends
\nand compatriots during their stay in Greece. The two of them could not not have more contrasting stories…<\/p>\n


\n
Haroon Maqbool, Hilda Orr, Wilson Chowdhry and Tariq Iqbal.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Haroon Maqbool is a married man with two children.  He was well employed in Rawal Pindi, Pakistan and had a very comfortable life.  First he
\nwas a receptionist in a hotel and later he became a drive for the UN World Food Programme.  <\/p>\n

Haroon was also a committed Christian and a volunteer at his local Church we he attended weekly.  At his church he befriended a young man named Martin
\nMike who was of African descent who told Haroon he was from South Africa.<\/p>\n

The two of them got on very well and so it was on no real consequence when Martin asked Haroon if he could use his account to receive some payments.  Martin
\ntold Haroon that due to not having a registered income and weak identification documents he was not able to open an account of his own.<\/p>\n

Two days after Haroon had agreed to permit Martin use of his account police men came knocking on his door.  They told Haroon that a serious fraud
\nof in excess of \u00a380,000 had occurred through his account.  Haroon went with the police to his bank and found the stolen money was indeed in his account
\nand he returned it to the Police to give to the victims.<\/p>\n

Haroon gave Martin Mike’s details to the police but when they could not find Martin they arrested Haroon again and tried to torture him into giving a confession.
\nAfter a months imprisonment he was released from jail and absconded to with his family to his in-laws house. Haroon then separated and hid in various different
\ncheap rentals for 6 months until he was introduced to an agent who agreed to get him to Greece for $5000.<\/p>\n

Haroon paid the fee and found himself on a plane to Dubai in July 2015.  There he was placed in a squat by a further agent at Daira, he was with many
\nother people seeking asylum.  They were all fed one meal a day for a month and then finally given a ticket for a plane to Turkey.<\/p>\n

In Turkey Haroon was met by the next agent who provided a squat and very basic food for 3 months and told to wait for a boat ride to Greece. After 3 months
\nhe was advised to find his own home and so he found work packaging in a factory. After a further 3 months he was given his first opportunity to get to
\nGreece he and 20 other people were placed in a small rubber dinghy approximately 4 metres in length and were told to paddle to the Island of Lesbos.  They
\nwere given very basic navigatory instructions and were rushed into the sea.<\/p>\n

Haroon remembers his fear when he went on the boat he and his friends were very aware of the death of Alan Kurdi a 3 year old child found washed up on
\na shore in September 2015.  They had also heard of many other asylum seekers who had died enroute to Greece. Haroon said:<\/p>\n

“I knew I was putting my life in danger and would probably not come back alive.  But what was waiting for me in Pakistan I was being fitted up for a crime I did not commit and I simply had no option.” <\/span><\/p>\n

Somehow on the way both the paddles for the dinghy were lost and the group thought they were going to die in the sea.  Fortunately a police boat found
\nthem saved them from the slowly capsizing dinghy and took them back to Turkey. They were all sentenced to 3 months incarceration for overstaying their
\ntravel visas. Haroon and four friends were bullied daily because of their Christianity, so they all went on hunger strike till a senior prison warden visited
\nthem and agreed to give them protection.<\/p>\n

After their sentence was complete the asylum seekers which included four Pakistani Christians were set free in Turkey.  The agent resumed communication
\nand within a month a boat had been secured for Lesbos Island.  Haroon and many other asylum seekers were advised that when they arrive on the shore
\nthey would be greeted by Red Cross volunteers who would immediately help them get to their country of choice, a commonly perpetuated myth.<\/p>\n

This time a party of 47 were given a much large rubber dinghy approximately 7 metres, with an engine. The boat was crowded but Haroon and his fellow Christian
\ncompatriots who he met through the journey simply prayed through the journey.  Their prayers were soon recognized by Muslim asylum seekers who demanded
\nthey ‘stop speaking to the devil’. The men said their prayers in the minds for the rest of the journey which was soon over.  Their 2 hour journey
\nled them to Lesbos Island in August 2016 where they were met by Red Cross volunteers who gave all the weary travellers some blankets for warmth, a change
\nof cloths and some hot drinks. <\/p>\n

People smuggling like this is not unusual, the UN records hundreds of thousands of refugees every year who travel across the Agean and Mediterranean Sea
\nevery year.  Turkey has promised a crackdown and received a budget of $6 Billion dollars from the European Union to police their borders more effectively,
\nsince the payout numbers of reported asylum seekers have reduced but the dangerous travel is continuing. Turkish authorities have jailed for five years
\nfour men who were involved in the illegal smuggling of the Kurdi family but hundreds of smugglers who have been involved in the death of 4000 asylum seekers
\njust last year continue to escape justice.<\/p>\n