Journey to Hell and Back
Wandering down the Cowley road, one sees the world, I suppose. Africans, Asians, Eastern Europeans; the old and the young; the happy and the unhappy. I, for one, always wonder how they came to England, why they chose to come here, what they're doing now. So the following is one man's story.
Jean is of average height, average build, quiet because he doesn't speak a word of English. He looks as if he's in his mid-twenties, but is in fact only eighteen. He's from Congo.
Five years ago, he lived a comfortable middle-class lifestyle in the capital of the country. His father worked for the WHO and his mother was a nurse. They had a house and a car, and all the children went to school. However, in June 1997 war broke out and his family fled to his grandparents' village. Four months later they returned to Brazzaville because they had heard that the situation there had improved. When they got back Jean's sister and his cousin were not there anymore. They got worried because these two were members of the OJC (Organisation de la Jeunesse Congolaise), a group lobbying against the government's exploitation of young people. A few days later, Jean's brother was brought back by a group of soldiers, the Cobras. He had refused to tell them the whereabouts of his sister and cousin. For this, the Cobras raped Jean's mother and sisters and beat up all the brothers. They then burnt down the house and took the car. So the family was forced to return to the grandparent's village.
In March 1998 there was another war, worse than all the others. Jean's family were forced to leave even the village and lived in the forest for almost a year, eating anything they could find - mostly wild vegetables and wild fruits.
In April 1999, with the help of some fishermen, they managed to get into Zaire (the Democratic Republic of the Congo). They arrived in a refugee camp, but life inside was very difficult and they decided to move out to an apartment. But Jean's mother was too old to work and so Jean's sister was forced to work as a prostitute to pay for the apartment and help the family survive. That same year they heard a story about 300 refugees who had arrived back in Brazzaville, and had all disappeared.
But in 2000 they heard the situation in Brazzaville was better so they again decided to go back. However, at the border, the guards started asking Jean about his sister, the one who worked for the OJC, who was on a list of people the authorities were searching for. Jean panicked and started running away, and the soldiers, because they couldn't catch him, shot at him. The first shot missed him and the second hit him in the neck. Hearing the shots, the captain of the boat intervened and Jean's family returned to Zaire.
In January this year, helped by one of his sister's ex-clients (while she was working as a prostitute in Kinshasha), Jean and his sister arrived in Britain, via Zimbabwe, with fake European passports. Jean's mother and sister are still in Zaire, and he hasn't heard anything about his father, whom he thinks is probably dead.
When asked what he wants from life right now, Jean asks for a little 'paix spirituelle' and a chance to continue his education. He hasn't gone to school for five years. For now, he lives in a small house with his two sisters, the husband of one of his sisters, and their two small children. Until his NASS applications come through and he is moved to another part of the country, he has nothing to do during the daytime. Meeting people is difficult, he says, when you don't speak the language.
Jean's story is by no means exceptional. Until the issue of asylum is resolved properly and fairly any spiritual peace will not be forthcoming, either for asylum seekers or for our society itself.
23rd Jan 2003