My name is Murtaza Nazari and I am 15 years old. Two months ago I left Afghanistan because every day there are killings. There are beheadings, there are bombs and there are kidnappings. We were not living in peace.
I had to leave my family behind. We all wanted to escape but we didn’t have the money to go together, so I left and they escaped after me. I think my mother is in Pakistan but I have lost my father – he was supposed to come to Iran, but I last spoke to him six weeks ago. My father is lost and I don’t know what to do.
I travelled from Afghanistan to Pakistan, then to Iran in a container. For one month I walked 20 hours a day, sometimes over mountains, then for four days with two hours of sleep. I went through Turkey, Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia, Hungary, Austria, Denmark and Sweden, and there were many refugees with me, but I travelled alone.
When I reached Sweden I spent 13 days in a camp in Stockholm, and that’s when I felt safe. I applied for asylum and the government has put me with a Swedish family. I want my family to come here legally so I’m going to school and I’m learning Swedish. In Afghanistan I went to school and I loved maths – my dream was to become a professor, but it was hopeless. Our lives were in danger, and we could never live happily. I could never become a professor there, but I now hope I can be a maths teacher one day.
Story told to Hannah Summers
