Zahraa is eleven years old. She has a sense of wisdom though that belies her age. She is her mother’s advocate.  

We met at Kara Tepe, a temporary respite for 961 refugees on the Greek island of Lesbos. In English she asked me to come with her. I tried to resist but she was quite firm and gracious, and with a smile said, “Come.” She brought me to meet her mother at their prefab shelter where she lives with her 15 year-old brother, Omar, and her 4-year-old brother, Othman. When we got there, Othman was scrubbing the welcome mat outside their door. Soap out, a brush that was far too big for him, splashing water from a bottle, he was hard at work. He has some issues with his eyesight, his mother, Sanaa, told me. He was wearing the cutest glasses, round lenses, pink frames.  

As soon as we said hello, Sanaa disappeared inside and came back with papers and started to explain to me what was going on – or not going on – in their attempt to reconnect with her husband who is now in Germany. The papers were carefully kept in a clear plastic sleeve, their lifeline to what they hope is some sense of security and a new life somewhere in Europe. She started pulling them out carefully, one by one. The worry and anxiety on her face was clear. She was bereft. She didn’t know what to do. She said that the European Asylum office had “laughed” at her when she presented her case. 

Sanaa and her children are Iraqi, and for reasons that are so very hard to comprehend, Iraqis are no longer eligible for relocation. She should be able to apply for family reunification to reunite with her husband. However, the process is unbearably long and unbearably bureaucratic and, because of her nationality, she is not seen as a priority. So she waits.  

I asked her what it was like to get on the boat with her three children and make that journey across the Aegean Sea.  

“It was like death,” she said. “It was a miracle that we made it.”  

Zahraa wants to be a pediatrician when she grows up because she thinks she would like it. 

“I want to take care of children,” she added with a smile.  

September 2016