Samia and Nari

Samia* and Nari* are a 21 and 28 year old Yazidi couple, originally from Syria. Yazidis are a religious minority that has been persecuted in many countries since the 7th century and continues to face discrimination today. In 2014, the Islamic State committed a genocide of Yazidis.

Samia and Nari were rescued on January 27, 2025, along with 92 people traveling on two boats.

That night, our team faced a critical situation when a 7-year-old child’s heart stopped beating after the rescue operation. Our team successfully performed CPR, and she was urgently evacuated to Malta via helicopter along with her mother and sister. Unfortunately, she later passed away at the hospital.

“We left Syria and got married in Lebanon in February 2024. We met in Lebanon. My brother is engaged to her sister. We fell in love and got married. For five years in Lebanon, I tried to get help from the UNHCR, but to no avail. It is impossible for us to go back to Syria, and life in Lebanon is also very difficult for us. We were three brothers living in the same house. That’s why we decided to leave. Our family was against it. We knew it was dangerous … a little girl died during the journey.

We paid 2,500 dollars to fly from Lebanon to Benghazi. Then we met a Syrian man, Abu Ahmed, who introduced us to a military officer in Libya. That man scammed us and stole 16,000 dollars from us. We gave him the money, but after six months, nothing had happened, and we were still in Libya. It was a scam. So, I went to his house and demanded our money back, but he refused. They kidnapped us. They put me in the back of a car, and she was in the front. We drove for nine hours, and then they took us to a house in Zawiya. They left us there with no food, nothing. They asked for more money to release us. I think he did this to stop us from complaining. We were locked up with another family. After 15 days, we were finally released.

In Libya, there is no way to officially file a complaint. But I managed to get his identity. [He shows us the ID of a military official.] When I was looking for a smuggler, someone recommended this man to me and sent me his ID to prove he was in the military. I want the person who scammed us to be judged. A lot of people are suffering because of him. He steals and kills. His only dream is to collect as much money as possible and make it to Europe. He has scammed so many people.

We then found someone else to help us cross, a man from Syria. We paid him 8,000 dollars each. It was my family who paid. We tried to cross once, but we were intercepted. Because we were a Syrian couple, we were not sent to jail. If you are single and not Syrian, you would be imprisoned.

We are Yazidis. Life in Syria and Lebanon was very hard for us.

All of this, we are doing it for our family, for our future child.

I would like to be a tailor.

Samia: And I would like to work in a beauty parlour. That was our work in Lebanon.

When we arrive in Europe, we still don’t know where we will go. We will continue our journey until we achieve our dream.

Collected by Lucille Guenier