Help me and my family to stay safe in Sweden

My name is Tamim Rahimi and I'm originally from Afghanistan. I arrived in Greece as a refugee with my wife and 2 small children, in April 2016. When I arrived in Lesbos Island I started working as a volunteer with many different humanitarian organization. I came to Athens and stayed. . . . .

My name is Tamim Rahimi and I'm originally from Afghanistan. I arrived in Greece as a refugee with my wife and 2 small children, in April 2016. When I arrived in Lesbos Island I started working as a volunteer with many different humanitarian organization. I came to Athens and stayed in a camp called Oinofyta. It was a refugee camp for around 500 people from many different countries. I worked with them as a translator at Oinofyta camp. There I worked with an organisation called Adventist help clinic and also with other project called ARMANDO Aid.

While staying in Oinofyta camp we met another family and had a nice friendship with them. But here is where the misery in our lives began...

Life was hard in the camp, and the processing was slow and frustrating. It was at that time that the Macedonian border was closed, and we felt that our best chance for our families was in Europe.

The father of the other family (Ali) and I decided to go and cross the border from Greece to Italy. The plan was to go through the Patras border in a truck. And if we would arrive safely then we could apply for reunification with the rest of the family. We paid smugglers to get us over and we were just waiting for the right opportunity to jump in a truck to Italy.

Unfortunately that did not happen. Another group of smugglers came and identified Ali. They were demanding 20,000 EUR from Ali (which I later found out was money he owed from crossing the border from Iran to Greece.) We tried to talk to them but an intense fight broke out and I was so worried because the smugglers were very strong and drunk and we were alone. All of a sudden, the smuggler stabbed Ali three times in the stomach and ran away. I was the only one at the port and had to take him to a hospital. It was hard getting him there and because we arrived so late at the hospital, they were not able to save him and he died. 😥

The police came to the hospital and started asking questions. I told the police the whole story and police officers took me with them to the port where the murder happened. I identified Ali's killers and police took them to the prison and I came back to the camp at Oinofyta and started my normal life. After a few weeks the smugglers started looking for me and the family of Ali in the camp. They told Ali's family to tell the judge that this was an accident not a murder. Ali’s family did not agree with them and they started putting pressure on us. The Oinofyta camp management decided to take Ali's wife and 4 children to another camp which was far away from Oinofyta.

When they left the camp, the smugglers came to me and started asking me where Ali's family was. I never told them where the family was staying, so the smugglers threatened to kill me and my family. After few days of warning they attacked me and my family by burning our tent. Their plan was to kill me and my whole family that was sleeping in the tent at 5 in the morning. We almost died.

After this we were sent to the same camp as Ali's family but the smugglers were still looking for us. It was so worrying and dangerous for us all to stay in Greece so finally we decided to go somewhere safe where the smugglers couldn't find us. We were 9 people, Ali's wife with her 4 kids and me and my family- one big family now.

Finally, we came to Sweden and we applied for asylum.

For now, we are safe but the problem in Sweden is that they want to return us back to Greece because Greece is our first arrive European country. That means that Greece has responsibility for us. But we don't want to back to Greece because we are not safe there. Now I am planning to hire a strong private lawyer to help us stay in Sweden. It costs a lot of money so I am kindly requesting to all families and friends who can help us stay in Sweden. Please try to share my big family's stories with yours friends and families who can donate to us and hopefully help us to live safe lives.

Best regards. Tamim Afghan.