LEEUWARDEN, The Netherlands—Seven-month-old Adam’s nights are restless. The din and chatter of 600 other asylum seekers sharing a “camp” in the north of the Netherlands keeps this youngest resident awake, and his parents anxious.
“Home”—their fifth in three months—is a flimsy plywood cubicle they occupy with two other Iraqi families in a cavernous exhibition center-turned-shelter.
But there is no door, no ceiling—and no chance for more sleep when the huge white lights go on each day at 7:00 am.
“This isn’t life. How can I explain it?” says Adam’s 27-year-old father Ahmad. “It’s like a bird in a cage. It eats and drinks but it’s not happy.”
All is a far cry from the vision that kept Ahmad and his hazel-eyed wife Alia, 26, going as they trod, baby in a sling, the migrant route to Europe last September, with a team of AFP journalists in tow.
Three months on, they feel trapped in a labyrinth of sluggish, soulless administrative steps—though the joy of watching Adam grow out of harm’s way encourages their patience.
“Our journey is not over,” says Ahmad, sitting on the edge of his unmade bed.
The boy can almost stand, and he can now say “Mama, Baba”. His playfulness is a welcome break both for his parents and some fellow asylum seekers, who like Ahmad and Alia left all behind.
The young Iraqi owned an upscale garment shop in Baghdad. Now, like the others in the shelter, he has to wear a blue plastic bracelet when he goes out to identify him as a “camp” resident.
“We still don’t know what fate has in store for us … whether or not we will have a residence permit,” he says.
Ahmad understands the Netherlands is “crowded” with a record number of asylum requests, but he can’t shake the fear that Dutch authorities may one day send them back to Iraq.
He also worries that attitudes towards refugees have changed since the deadly Paris attacks.
“People used to say hello to us on the street, they used to welcome us. Now they don’t anymore,” he says.
His family’s situation mirrors that of hundreds of thousands of others, uncomfortably accommodated by overwhelmed European authorities who have commandeered sports halls and other civic buildings.
Nearly a million people fleeing war and misery reached Europe’s shores this year.
When Ahmad and Alia survived a bomb attack in Baghdad in 2014, they too decided to risk all and crossed the Aegean Sea this summer.