My name is Noura and I am 21, I come from Iraq. I left Iraq because ISIS took my father and we had to pay a lot of money so that he was released. Afterwards, we were terrified and we fled the country. I am currently staying for some time in Tabanovce transit centre in Macedonia, but I have started a procedure to go back to Iraq.
The reason why I will go back to Iraq is because the situation there, at least in the region where I will go back, is calmer and safer from what I know for now. Another major thing is because I really want to continue helping refugees there. I helped a lot of refugees here before as a Red Cross volunteer, and I was also volunteering with other organizations here on the field. But there are many refugees in Iraq as well and I believe I would be more needed there.
I speak 4 languages fluently and I have an intermediate level of 3 other languages. I am Kurdish, so being one of the few people with Kurdish-English combination is quite useful. My journey was plagued with many challenges. I experienced unconceivable things. In Eidomeni for example, a Syrian woman was about to give birth. I helped her give birth to her baby with my own bare hands out in the open field. I didn’t have experience with delivering a baby before, but luckily, everything went well. I was sleeping in a sleeping bag there and shaking in the cold. There wasn’t enough space in the tents for all. I didn’t think that I would cross into Macedonia and I was overjoyed when I was allowed to cross the border.
The people here are every kind to me, both Macedonians and Albanians. To be frank, they never made me feel like I am a refugee. I really didn’t feel like a refugee in Macedonia. When we were on the field with the aid workers who were Syrian, Macedonian, Albanian – it felt like we are part of one big family trying to assist other people. But now it is time to go back to my region. My message to everyone would be not to judge a book by its covers. The refugees escape their countries because of wars, because of ISIS, not because they choose to leave. Us, people, we need to help each other. We are humans. We need to stop thinking about religions, the skin colour or country of the person we are trying to help, because we are all humans.
The stories are collected by activists from Legis and are supported by GIZ on behalf of BMZ.
The content of this publication does not necessarily reflect the views of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammmenarbeit (GIZ) GMBH.
