We want to bring you two stories of the ‘refugee/migrant’ crisis in Europe. Here’s the first.
While we have written of many cautions, there also are some legitimate refugees. The problem is that there seems to be very little effort to distinguish between them. Here’s one, to whom we do owe an obligation.
Via Free Beacon:
The boat carrying former Marine interpreter Sami Kazikhani began to take on water a couple dozen meters from the coast. All that stood between the 50 souls on board and doom was the thin layer of black rubber that was built to sustain 25 people. Passengers started ditching the bags that carried what was left of their possessions into the sea. Some men hopped out to push the craft toward shore.
“One of the boats that was coming along with us flipped over with, I don’t know, 45 or 50 people. It was really tragic. The rule is not to look back but straight ahead,” Kazikhani, 32, tells the Washington Free Beacon over Facebook Messenger.
Yasmiin Kazikhani cradled the couple’s seasick 10-month-old, Roxanna, but was too scared to open her eyes. She’d periodically ask how far away they were: “just one more minute,” Kazikhani said from beginning to end. After an hour the boat reached Lesbos, a Greek island home to about 90,000 natives and 25,000 refugees. Kazikhani told her it was safe to open her eyes.
More than 2.5 million Afghans have been displaced by war, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency. But they have been overshadowed by the mass migration of nearly 4 million Syrians caught between a brutal dictator and murderous terrorists. Kazikhani’s journey is one of service, betrayal, bureaucracy, and, desperation, but hope entered the mix on September 1. “Miracle” is the word he uses most often over several hours of texting and telephone conversation.
A couple hours after the Kazikhani family landed in Lesbos Turkish authorities discovered the body of Syrian toddler Aylan Kurdi facedown in the surf. The photo of the young boy in Velcro shoes forced the world to confront the reality of a refugee crisis five years in the making. Former Marine Sergeant Aaron Fleming saw it on Wednesday from his home in Missouri. He checked back in with Kazikhani, his interpreter during a 2011 tour in southwestern Afghanistan.
“He asked about [the refugee crisis]. I said I was one of them,” Kazikhani says.
Fleming was incensed. He knew that Kazikhani had requested a special immigrant visa reserved for interpreters. Now the comrade who helped him survive his third combat deployment was risking his life at sea when he should have been in the United States.