Equipped with a student visa - for which he paid 2,500 dollars - Samir arrived in Russia last October on a Damascus-Moscow flight.
This 30-year-old Syrian feared being conscripted into Bashar al-Assad's army.
To finance his trip, his father borrowed money and his mother sold her gold jewelry.
But once there, Samir did not join the University of Yekaterinburg where he was enrolled.
His real goal was quite different: to reach Europe, which he tried to do, in vain, first via Belarus to enter Poland, then by trying to go to Finland.
To discover
Follow information on the war in Ukraine with the Figaro application
In the fall,
“groups inviting illegal immigrants to try their luck multiplied rapidly on Telegram
,” noted, on February 1, the newspaper
Novaya Gazeta
in an investigation into the improbable journey of Samir and hundreds of other young people. men from Syria, Yemen, Ethiopia or Afghanistan who set off, via Russia, on the roads of exile towards the European Union
.
“We saw them in Vyborg…
This article is reserved for subscribers.
You have 74% left to discover.
Flash sale
-70% on digital subscription
I ENJOY IT
Already subscribed?
Log in