Eritrea-More+Stories

The day we interviewed Merhawi, a refugee from Eritrea, he told us a story about himself and his mother. While he was driving boats in the navy, he heard that his mother was coming to see him. Having not seen her in three years, he was very excited and asked his boss for some time off. That day his boss told him that he would be going to the border of Yemen in one of the boats, but Merhawi was still content with just a few hours with his mom. Merhawi's friend, who also worked with him, met his mother before Merhawi could see her, and immediately knew that it was his mother because of their similar appearances. Before the friend could tell Merhawi, their boss told him to tell Merhawi's mother that he was already out on the border of Yemen and Eritrea and that no one knew when he would be back. The friend did what he was told, for fear of the government harming him or his family, but was deeply ashamed afterwards. Merhawi's was mother was so sad that she made the friend promise to tell Merhawi to come see her. Later on Merhawi found out about what had happened through this same friend, how he was stopped from seeing his own flesh and blood. At this time, Merhawi began to hate his country and placed the blame upon all these people for keeping him from his mother. He even started to have dreams of his mother who would be begging and crying for him to come home. From the way he told his story, we could tell that family was his number one priority, and because of the war, he was kept from part of his family, which is why he cursed his own country. It has been four years since this moment in time, and a total of seven years have gone by and Merhawi has yet to see his own mother again.

If anyone has a story they would like to share, we encourage you to add your experience, even leave it anonymously if need be. We would truly appreciate your courage and openness, knowing that your experience can help us all to understand what goes on around the world, even just a little bit.