Sajad Bayeqra
Sajad couldn’t visit Istanbul again because, even though he had documents proving his refugee status in Germany and a valid travel document, the Turkish Consulate did not issue him a visa. Consequently, no Turkish city appears in this film; however, that only prevented Sajad’s physical visit to Turkey—thoughts know no borders, and visas cannot be issued for them. Sajad decided to complete the series in our magazine by writing an essay on his time in Turkey.
Editor’s Note
After 18 hours of walking at night, I arrived in the city of Iğdır, Turkey. I stayed in Iğdır for only a week, but I saw nothing of the city because I was confined to a small, dark room provided by the smuggler. For the first three days, all I wanted to do was sleep, as ever since I had left Kabul, I had spent my time either walking, running, or traveling in the back of pickup trucks.
On the sixth day, the smuggler put us on a bus. It was a brand-new, luxurious bus with clean seats. After such a long journey, the moment I sat on those soft, clean seats, I fell asleep.
After six hours, the assistant driver woke everyone up and told us to get off the bus and eat at a nearby hotel. Having spent a month and a half surviving on bread and yogurt, I was thrilled by the aroma of kebabs coming from the hotel. After enjoying a delicious meal, we got back on the bus. However, this time, they made me sit in the aisle, saying that my turn for a seat had ended. If I wanted to sit properly again, I had to pay 100 lira—but I had already spent all my money on kebabs.
Around 8 PM, we arrived at Esenler Bus Terminal in Istanbul. For the first time, I saw beautiful women with elegant figures, their legs visible beneath short skirts. I had only ever seen such sights on television before.
In the vast city of Istanbul, I had to find a new smuggler to take me to Europe. After some calls to friends in Kabul, I was put in touch with an uncle of one of them, who was a smuggler. I went to his house, where I was once again placed in a small room with ten other Afghan migrants. But this time, I couldn’t sleep. I wasn’t tired anymore. It was as if I had never taken a long journey at all. I just wanted to go outside and explore the beautiful city of Istanbul—a city filled with the sound of seagulls and taxi horns, like Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1, but played in the rhythm of seagulls and honking cabs.
The next day, as I prepared to leave the smuggler’s house to explore the city, one of the Afghan boys warned me, “Don’t make that mistake. If the police catch you, they’ll deport you back to Afghanistan.”
Hearing that, fear gripped me. I thought to myself: “You idiot, you didn’t come here for fun and sightseeing. You came to reach Europe.”
Four days later, I got on another smuggler’s bus, heading toward Izmir, where I planned to take a boat to Europe.
I have been a migrant since I was four years old, always afraid of the police and borders. I never had a stable home or school; I was always on the run.
When I finally got my own small room in Berlin in 2019, I spent two years living in constant fear that I would have to leave—that this place wasn’t really mine.
Sajad Bayeqra
