The thing I miss most about my home, is at the back of my home there is a river, with a lot of stones. There was a stone like a chair that I used to sit on. I used to say ‘this is my chair’. I could sit there and it would make me feel safe. From there you can look at the village, the cows, the mountains. I used to call it Duuba Kattaa.
As you know, this is a running blog, about everything running.
I write about personal experiences of running in my life.
Which is quite egocentric, but I always hope to share something that others can relate to.
This post has been eluding me. Because most of us will never be so unfortunate as to relate to any of this running story.
Yet every single part of this story is about running. Running away from terror and oppression – literally running. And metaphorically, having to choose to run for flight when fight has been taken from your options. Running to your destination, against all odds, with your life in the balance, having the strength, courage and desperation to keep going through all costs to your body and soul. Reaching what you thought was the finish line, to find it is just the beginning. Then, through all of that, finding ways to run – hungry, round industrial estates, just to stay alive.
We can’t even imagine being thrown in prison for no reason, beatings, torture, and then managing to escape with your life. Making the perilous journey to safety, away from home and family, where the journey’s end is not freedom, but being shoved to the very outskirts of society. Barely allowed to live, kept in limbo, like an inconvenient truth. This is the reality of an Asylum Seeker in the UK today.
I count it as a privilege to know Dame (‘Daam-Ay’) personally, and call him my friend. My little family are invited to call him ‘Bokkuu’ – his affectionate nickname. I have interviewed Dame several times, whilst out running in the Eryri hills and over the phone, in the hope to write a blog article that might help his case for Asylum in this country.
Why is this so hard to write? Maybe it’s the dream. Unbearably simple. To live in safety, with the right to work, and run, in this country without the constant, daily fear of being rejected.
The success of Dame’s Asylum application can’t bring him back his home, the animals he loves, the coffee, the mountains, his family, their love, his chance to speak one last time to his father. It can’t even begin to address any of the survivor’s guilt he might hold.
Yet at least with Asylum there would be hope, a path to peace for him. A chance to wake up every day and be able to build a future, to work, to have enough money not to go hungry. To be in a position to extend a hand of kindness behind him and the wisdom of experience in front. And even the chance to compete in races, with the same secure footing that his team mates and competitors woke up with that morning.
Dame is an Oromo, the largest ethnic group in Ethiopia. They have been historically subjected to injustices. Despite their numerical majority, the systematic discrimination against the Oromo has left them politically disenfranchised. Persecution and violence by the state has caused many to flee and refuse to self-identify as Ethiopian.
Ethiopia has seen a drastic rise in ethnic violence in recent years, with thousands killed and millions uprooted from their lives. The situation remains complex and extremely dangerous, with various groups using violence to gain power and influence. Dame would face violence, persecution, imprisonment, torture and possible murder upon his forced return.
Dame’s journey to the UK was long and arduous. He faced almost constant danger, on foot, starving, through the most fractious countries in the world: Sudan, Libya. It was so disorienting that when he finally reached the UK he didn’t even realise where he was. His story:
They told me I was in the UK now. They called the police who came and put me in the back of their car. My English was very little, but they didn’t speak to me. In the early hours I was taken to a Migrant Center in Dover. They gave me a blanket and asked me questions. They didn’t tell me what would happen to me. They put me in a room, with four other people. We didn’t speak to each other. I just lay down with my blanket to sleep.
Early the next morning, they took me from there to a hotel. I spent one night there, before being put on a crowded bus to Croydon, London. There I stayed in another hotel for 5 weeks. There was nothing in my room, just another room mate. Neither of us knew what was going to happen and we did nothing all day. We would go to a room to eat, and then back to bed. Just waiting. If your name went up on a wall, you were taken away. But my name never came up. I didn’t know what would happen. I had no hope. No information.
We were allowed to leave the hotel to go for a walk. One day I got lost, I couldn’t find my way back. I didn’t know what to do. I had a phone number for a charity, Help For Calais. I called them up and they sent a family to help me. I went to stay with them in Gravesend for about a year.
After that I moved to Lewisham, South London. I couldn’t sleep at night so the family suggested I took up running. I found parkrun, and then became a member of the running club, Kent AC. The Kent AC is like a big family I live in since I joined them and still today.
The Home Office moved me away to Reading. And now Bedford. They never explain why.
I have been here in the UK for seven years. These are very hard days. After seven years, I still never know what is going to happen. I have nothing to do. There’s no life. No life. No plan.
I worry constantly. I try to bring positives into my life. I listen to music. I go for a run. If it wasn’t for running I would not be here today. It helps me pass the time. Helps my mental health.
There are lots of problems in Ethiopia. I try to avoid hearing about them. I think about my family there. What situation they are in. Sometimes I can’t sleep.
Sometimes I try to make myself something tasty to eat. But it is not possible to live on £37 a week. People donate clothes to me. I get assistance from my friends at Kent AC. But sometimes things are very tough and I only have one meal a day.
I wake up, pray, go for a run. Shower. Sometimes I will go for a walk and come back around 4pm. then I have a nap and cook dinner. I am very tired in the evenings.
Dame says he owes his life to running. Still today, it is all that is keeping him going through to tomorrow. The question for us: the runners, their families, friends, organisers, sideline supporters, citizens of the UK by fortune of birth – is how can we support this race? All those running for their lives. Before we even start to speak of ‘space’ and jobs, budgets and boats, we need to speak of what is fair and right for people – not just whoever they are, but especially when their very lives are in the balance. Asylum isn’t a fairytale ending, a luxury bestowed. It’s a human right and a lawful obligation. We should all get behind this.
We should all get behind Dame (see diagram below).
The race I really enjoy running is Cross Country. It’s all memories of back home. Which all my life I lived in the forest and mud always, so I am remembering them. I Iove it so much.
More On The Conflict in Oromia:
‘Ethiopia’s other conflict’: what’s driving the violence in Oromia? The Conversation article here.
Ethiopia violence in Oromia: ‘Villages full of dead bodies’. BBC article here.
Well done for putting this out there.