Rotterdammers not only live in houses, but also temporarily on boats. This is because that is where the municipality accommodates asylum seekers and status holders. “I think the government does that well. I feel welcome,” says Arshad. He has been living on one such boat since February 2023. First, he lived in Sinjar, a city and region in Iraq where the Islamic State carried out genocide against its community, the Yezidis. This minority group lives across Iran, Turkey, Iraq and Syria and speaks Kurdish. It adheres to one of the world’s oldest monotheistic faiths. “Only because of our identity, because I am Yezidi, ISIS attacked us,” he said.
Atrocities
ISIS kidnapped his family and took them to Syria. “The Islamic State snatched our children and brainwashed them,” he said. Unfortunately, Arshad’s family was not spared. “They forced me to work for them by beating my mother and so on,” he says. Sadly, his mother died from the atrocities. “I had to learn how to use weapons, how to kill people and how to paint their slogans everywhere.” Fortunately, he did not have to fight in the end. Western countries bombed ISIS, allowing people like Arshad to flee. And that’s what he did. At the age of 14, he fled back to Kurdistan in Iraq.
A week’s walk
There they lived in refugee camps for eight to nine years. “But the conditions there were very difficult, so I tried to get away. Eventually, I was able to get a Turkish visa with my Iraqi passport and was able to take a bus to Turkey. There I paid the smugglers 2,000 dollars to take me to Greece.” Together with 20 others, he walked for a week through the forests to Athens. There, too, a refugee camp awaited him, where he stayed for nine months.
Netherlands
When he got his residence permit, he caught a plane to the Netherlands. “I heard in Greece that people there were nice and would welcome me,” he said. He also had an uncle living there and knew that several Yezidis had fled to the Netherlands. So it was his uncle who dropped him off at Ter Apel, where he stayed for just under a week.
No foreigner
Then he was allowed to go to one of the ships moored in Rotterdam to accommodate people like Arshad until a house became available. “Here there are many people from different backgrounds so it doesn’t feel like I am a foreigner. I have good friends now so it feels like a new family here. That feels good.” He therefore advises this to other newcomers to Rotterdam. “You have to make friends, talk to local people and be nice.”
He wants to live in Rotterdam for a longer period of time. “I want to become a dentist. That’s my dream.”