“I came to the border, they said ‘You’re an Arab Syrian. Go back.’,” That was the experience of Douraid, a refugee from Lataki, Syria, who attempted to enter Spain through Morocco’s border with Melilla in 2017.

His trip to the Spanish border was a heartbreaking anticlimax to a journey which took him across the Sahara desert, from war-torn Syria to Morocco.

In 2011, Douraid graduated from Tishreen University in Lataki, Syria with a degree in mechanical engineering. As soon as he graduated, the Syrian civil war began.

“From the first day of the war, it was very difficult for us,” he says. “You could say that life had totally stopped. The war made all of our futures impossible.”

From the time he graduated to 2016, Douraid spent his time in Syria saving enough money to go abroad. That year, he headed to Mauritania, one of the only countries that legally accepted him as a refugee without a visa.

His journey to Mauritania saved him from the conflict, but there he only found new problems and challenges.

“Mauritania was a rough place. It is in the desert and it has a completely different culture,” he explains, adding that he found work with an NGO and his situation improved.

Despite settling, Douraid always kept his eyes on one day moving to Europe or America.

“Every Syrian’s dream is to go to Europe or America. I wanted to have a better life,” Douraid continues. When his cousin in Mauritania passed away in 2017, Douraid had nothing in Mauritania to leave behind.

Entering Morocco

He was given the advice that he could enter Europe through the border with Melilla. Once he was in Spain, he could seek asylum.

Douraid spent the month of April 2017 traversing the Sahara desert. His journey took him through Mauritania, Mali, Algeria, and ending in Morocco. He rode in the back of a pickup truck with the harsh desert conditions being a constant struggle.

“We fell into the sand three times. There is no water or food. It was a very exhausting journey for us,” he recounts.

Upon entering Algeria from Mali, Douraid was kidnapped and was forced to pay MAD 2,000 for his freedom. He spent nearly a month in Algeria trying to find a new smuggler to Morocco.

Around May 2017, Douraid arrived at Melilla’s border, where he was instantly identified as a Syrian and refused entry into Spain. For one week, he attempted to cross the border until he was robbed of all his money. This left him trapped in Morocco without any documentation or legal status in the country.

Although he is a professional engineer, Douraid now works in a restaurant, which for undocumented workers is one of the few options available.

“To be honest, I am a mechanical engineer. I like to work in a factory with an engineering job. But that’s life,” Douraid said when asked about how he found his job. “I like working in a restaurant. You meet people from all over the world. It is very interesting.”

Thanks to the United Nations, Douraid has some form of documentation proving his refugee status, which will help prevent any deportation back to Syria. But because there is no Syrian embassy in Morocco, Douraid has no state representation in the country. To have his passport renewed, he needed to hire somebody to send it to Syria. 

One of many

Douraid is one of 13.5 million Syrian refugees now living around the world. His shocking story of fear and statelessness is all too familiar for Syrians across the globe. In Morocco alone, there are over 19,000 Syrian refugees, many of whom currently live in Rabat. 

Although many refugees are drawn by the wealth and opportunities of Europe and America, Morocco has also offered them a new home with great options. The country is a large automobile exporter, meaning qualified engineers like Douraid may find employment in the future. 

Europe and America can also be difficult places for Syrian refugees to flee to. Just recently, the anti-Islamic Freedom Party led by Geert Wilders won a plurality in the Dutch Parliamentary elections. From Poland to Spain, right wing Islamophobic and xenophobic parties are winning a significant number of seats.

In the United States, Donald Trump, who once supported a “Muslim Ban” is on track to once again run as the Republican candidate for the 2024 Presidential Election. 

Not only does Morocco offer work opportunities and safety for refugees, but they could also find it easier to fit in and be welcome in an Islamic Arab country.

Twelve years after the Syrian civil war began, there seems to be no hope in sight for refugees to return home any time soon. Instead, millions of people like Douraid find themselves juggling the precarious international immigration system and all of the challenges of moving and living abroad.