Syrian Mother’s Story to Freedom

I jumped at the opportunity to go to Kos and see what the media were calling a migrant crisis. We spent nights sitting on beaches waiting for people to land. We spent days in camps talking to migrants, locals and holiday makers who had decided to volunteer. I spoke to fellow journalists who told us where people land - the light house. Everyone steers their boat towards that light.

The men spoke for the women. Families with their children camped on street pavements that led to the town’s nightlife. I remember children playing in the sea - the magnitude of what their parents were trying to achieve lost in their innocence. I witnessed men crying as they stepped on dry land. I asked traffickers what they planned to do with the engines they’d just taken from the newly arrived dinghies. I watched men walk away towards a new life with only a small plastic bag holding their life’s belongings.

I remember the volunteers telling me of the whispering requests for sanitary towels. I saw one water supply down by the shore. It was used to bathe hundreds of people and quench their thirst. I tracked down the United Nations representative to explain the tension.

I saw one tent big enough for one small person. Inside was an African woman with her baby daughter. My heart sank at what they might have been through and what was still to come.

Then I met Hekmat - a hairdresser from Syria making the journey with her son. She showed me her immaculately kept tent beside the road and talked to me about her past and hopes for her future.

I am still in touch with her. She has settled in Germany and says was given three years to assimilate.

I think of her once in a while.

Broadcast: BBC Radio 4 Woman’s Hour.