Out of Syria, a Refugee Family’s 11-Day Odyssey to a Safer Life in Germany

Delshad Bashar and his family endured an ambush, a sweltering smugglers’ truck in their harrowing trek

The Bashars, a Kurdish family from Syria, traveled Monday on a train from Vienna to Munich, the last leg of their 11-day journey to Germany.PHOTO:VALENTINA POP/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

ByVALENTINA POPUpdated Sept. 8, 2015 7:56 p.m. ET

VIENNA—His family was ambushed by bandits, and they walked until their feet were swollen in pain, but that was far from the worst of Delshad Bashar’s trek from Syria in search of a safer life in Germany.That would come in a blisteringly hot smugglers’ truck in Greece, when—crammed inside with dozens of sweat-soaked people struggling to breathe—his 3-year-old daughter went limp from lack of air.“I thought we would die so many times,” saidMr. Bashar,a Syrian Kurd painter, describing the moment of panic days later, as he and his family of five were on a train rolling through the green hills of Austria and Bavaria on their way to Munich. “We’ve been through everything.”

They were now nearing the end of an 11-day odyssey from Al-Muabbada, their hometown in the northeastern tip of Syria, en route to meet Mr. Bashar’s younger brother, who had been living in the German city of Stuttgart for a year.

  1. The distance from Al-Muabbada, Syria to Munich, Germany is about 2,215 miles. If it took the Bashar family 11 days to travel the distance, about how many miles did they travel each day?

His account was justone story of thousands from the biggest migration wave to spread across Europe since the end of World War II. Peoplehave streamed into Germany in the days since Berlin lifted entry restrictions for Syrian refugees and Hungary gave up its attempts to control the flow.His two children preoccupied with donated colored pencils, Mr. Bashar recounted his family’s journey while in a train car packed with exhausted Syrians and Afghans—and perplexed Austrians. One woman held a handkerchief over her nose to filter the pervasive smell of sweat earned in days of grueling travel. Next to Mr. Bashar sat his 25-year-old wife, Iman, who had brought along her younger brother,Usama Abdullah,20.

Mr. Bashar, who keeps a photo gallery on his phone showing the colorful gypsum ceilings he used to make for a living, said life in Al-Muabbada, a Kurdish-controlled town tucked between Syria’s Iraqi and Turkish borders, had become unbearable—and increasingly dangerous.“We used to have money, but now with the war, nobody has anything left,” he said, speaking in Kurdish through an interpreter.Back at home, Kurdish forces were fighting radical Islamic State insurgents only 3 miles from their town. The chaos of the encroaching conflict meant there was no longer kindergarten available forHelez,his three-year old daughter, and Agid, his five-year old son—whose name means “strong man” in Kurdish.“It takes two days to paint a room like this,” he says, pointing to his photo gallery. “And only a minute to destroy everything.”

  1. If Mr. Bashad was earning $275 for 3 months salary, how much did he earn per month?

As Mr. Bashar described it, every man in his region has had to pledge or show allegiance—either to the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, to Islamic State, or to the Kurdish militias. He said he refused. Instead, he decided to sell his possessions, gather the proceeds and pay smugglers to take him and his family to Germany.

Delshad Bashar, a Kurdish Syrian refugee, at work in his home town of Al-Maabadah, Syria.PHOTO:DELSHAD BASHAR

Once the decision was made, the family left Al-Muabbada on Aug. 28. Shortly before, he gave €11,500 ($12,880) to a Kurdish friend in Turkey to pay Kurdish traffickers in Turkey and Serbia. He traveled with another $1,500 in cash to cross the Syrian border into Turkey. He said they took little cash along for fear of being robbed, occasionally borrowing money when the family had to.

  1. If there are 5 people in Mr. Bashad’s family, how much did the smugglers charge the family per person?

They drove through the night to the Turkish border, where a trafficker took them to the other side. From there, they took a series of buses toward Istanbul—on one, the children had to sleep on the floor—which they reached on the morning of Aug. 30.There, they looked for a trafficker for hours before chancing upon Jano, a Turkish Kurd, who charged them $7,500 for a trip leaving that night for Thessaloniki, Greece, on a minibus with the seats ripped out. That way, the vehicle meant for 11 could fit some 20 adults and even more children—though the driver had to be persuaded not to force in more.They departed in a convoy with three other packed minibuses. When one of them got a flat tire around the Turkish border city of Edirne, the passengers had to hide in the bushes so police wouldn’t see them.

  1. If the Turkish smuggler charged Mr. Bashad’s family of 5 $7500 for the trip from Turkey to Greece, how much did it cost per person?
  1. If the Turkish smuggler charged 25 passengers in the mini bus the same rate as Mr. Bashad’s family. How much money did they make from the 4 mini busses of Syrian, Iraqi & Afghan refugees?

But others did. The group was ambushed by an Afghan gang who tried to rob them at gunpoint, but the drivers had weapons, too, and Mr. Bashar and other passengers managed to overpower them, he said. The journey continued with a two-hour walk to a canal near Edirne, where the family and the others were told to wait until sunrise and instructed to pump up inflatable boats for the 20-minute crossing. The last boat was overloaded and filled up with water halfway across the canal, forcing its passengers to jump and swim the rest of the way.

The most harrowing moment was still to come. Once they were in Greece, smugglers had the group—now 93 adults and 15 children—get into the hold of a truck. “We spent around six hours in that truck,” Mr. Bashar said. “It was horrible. We were afraid. There was no air, and our clothes were drenched in sweat.”When Helez passed out, Mr. Bashar grabbed the table knife they were using to eat and ripped a hole in the side of the truck’s tarpaulin, he said, then held her against it to breathe the fresh air. “Greek police must have seen her face in the hole, because they pulled us over and arrested everyone,” he said.

  1. The Bashar family spent 6 hours in the hold of a truck fro the trip from the Edirne Canal in Turkey to Thessaloniki, Greece. The distance from Edirne to Thessaloniki is about 270 miles. What was the speed of the truck in miles per hour?

They were taken into custody in a town near Thessaloniki for over 24 hours, women and children separated from men. But, he said, they were treated well and given water and food. The following day local police interviewed them, gave them each a document that instructed them to leave Greece within three to four days. A bus took the entire group to Thessaloniki, where they were split up. The Bashars and some 20 others were bused again and dropped a little over a mile from the Macedonian border, where they were told to walk.

  1. If the bus drove at a rate of 55 miles per hour, how many hours did the trip from Thessaloniki to the Macedonian border take?

It was Thursday. By then,the flow of fellow migrantswas becoming denser. They were surrounded along the roads by crowds of other Syrian Kurds, Arabs, Afghans, Bangladeshis and Africans—all marching the same way.“It was packed. Thousands were waiting for their turn to cross (the border). Greek police were making lists and taking people in groups of 25-50 people every 10 minutes,” Mr. Bashar recalled.

  1. If there were 25 – 50 people being let across the Greek-Macedonian border every 10 minutes, about how many people were let across the border in an hour?

Once over the border, the Bashars continued their journey by train, a 3½-hour ride to the Serbian border. Macedonian police at the train station showed them the way across through some woods and, after about an another hour’s walk, they met Serbian police. The officers pointed the group to a bus station just over a mile away, where they could take a ride to the Serbian capital of Belgrade.

  1. The trip from Macedonia’s border with Greece in the south to its border with Serbia in the north is about 109 miles. If it took the train 3 ½ hours to travel that distance, what was the speed of the train in miles per hour?

“But they lied,” Mr. Bashar said. “It was a tough walk. We spent more than four hours looking for that bus stop.”When they got there, Mr. Bashar was determined to find a smuggler to get them directly to Austria. The end of their journey was now in sight, but there wasone last formidable obstacle: “Word had spread on Facebook that Hungary is horrible, police beat you, they take your fingerprints,” he recalled. “My brother and friends who are already in Germany all said, ‘Do whatever you have to do, pay whatever you have to pay, to avoid Budapest.”Hungarian authorities have said they sought to protect and manage the thousands of migrants pouring into the country while also adhering to EU rules, which require them to register and fingerprint migrants arriving in the bloc.

Mr. Bashar met Nuri, a trafficker and fellow Kurd, who took them to an apartment in Belgrade, where his wife and the children showered and rested. They paid €400 for the lodging and another €4,000 for the trip to Austria, payment he said they were allowed to arrange once they reached Vienna.A car took them to the Hungarian border, where they had to walk for five hours. By now their feet were swollen and blistered, and Agid had developed an eye infection. A dry, peeling red rash had broken out on Mr. Bashar’s left hand. “We could not walk anymore,” he said. “We were finished.”

  1. How much did the Bashar family pay per person for the lodging in Belgrade?
  1. How much did the Bashar family pay per person for the trip to Austria?

The guide whom Nuri had arranged met them at the newly erected Hungarian razor-wire fence, cut a hole in it, and walked them through. On the other side, they huddled for nearly 20 hours before they were picked up and taken to a village near Vienna. From there, an Austrian volunteer gave them a ride to the city’s Westbahnhof train station, where they spent the night in a shelter before making their final train trip to Germany.

In Munich on Monday, it took a good half-hour to find Mr. Bashar’s brother, as the crowds emptied out and the family stood alone on the platform. When he appeared, Agid jumped into his arms and the brothers hugged with relief. The family was reunited.