Subscribe 

Iraqi Refugees See No Way Home

“They can’t turn me down,” says 21-year-old Safaa, an Iraqi asylum seeker, after inquiring with German officials again about his next interview.  “Most of my city has been destroyed.” “I’m not worried,” he adds, smiling. His friend, 27-year-old Ahmed, is also from Salah al-Din, an Iraqi province beset with both Islamic State militants and sectarian […]

Heather Murdock writes for Voice of America:

“They can’t turn me down,” says 21-year-old Safaa, an Iraqi asylum seeker, after inquiring with German officials again about his next interview.  “Most of my city has been destroyed.”

“I’m not worried,” he adds, smiling.

His friend, 27-year-old Ahmed, is also from Salah al-Din, an Iraqi province beset with both Islamic State militants and sectarian strife.  While Safaa looks confident Germany will accept his application, his friend leans in quietly behind him and says to me in English:  “Oh, he is worried. He’s worried.”

Seven months have passed since these men arrived in Germany, and they are no closer to knowing if or when they will be granted asylum - that is,  legal refugee status.  At a plaza outside the central train station in Dresden, they say Iraqi and U.S. escalation of the assault on IS won’t change their plans, whatever the outcome.