Katherin's Story

I was born in Chile, in South America. 

I had to move to Brazil when I was five years old because my father was arrested and put into prison by Pinochet’s military dictatorship. Although he wasn’t politically active, he had been a supporter of the previous president Salvador Allende and expressing any sympathy with Allende’s ideas was forbidden. My father had been in the navy since he was fourteen but when he was arrested he was thrown out. It was devastating for him because the navy was his whole life.  It also made it impossible for him to find a job because when people knew he had been forced to leave the navy they assumed he’d done something wrong and wouldn’t employ him. We had to leave our home because it was soldiers’ accommodation so we went to live with my grandma. One day, military officers came to the house when my father was out, they searched everywhere for him, it was very scary. We knew then that he was going to be disappeared, as so many others had been, nobody knew where any of them went or ever heard from them again.  We had to leave. 

I lived in Brazil for twenty years. While I was there I studied psychology at Mackenzie University in Sao Paulo. My parents could never go back to Chile because my father had lost too much there. But I always wanted to go back and do something for my country so once I’d finished my studies I returned. I went to the North of Chile and started a project for people with autism and aspergers syndrome. In this part of the country there are no facilities, support or interventions to help children with these conditions, and many of them are undiagnosed, so we had to start from scratch. We helped anyone who needed it, regardless of whether they were wealthy enough to pay. We applied for a lot of government funding and finally won a grant to open a school.

Having set up the school and recruited a head teacher who I trusted, I returned to  Santiago. There I set up my own practice as a child psychologist specialising in autism. I was so happy with my private practice. Sometimes I dream about having my own school again. But on the other hand, working one-to-one is really rewarding because you can see the progress of each child. 

In 2007, while I was living in Santiago I got back in touch with my old boyfriend Roberto, who had moved to Australia and then to England. We started our relationship again and I tried to convince him to come back to Chile but he didn't want to because his family had been persecuted by Pinochet’s regime. He had been tortured and his sister was disappeared. Also, he had lived in England for more than 20 years and built a career here so it wouldn't make sense to start from scratch again.

At this point, although Pinochet had just died, my country was still divided. This was clear to see when Pinochet died because half of the people were celebrating and half of them were crying. There was a lot of confrontation in the streets between those who supported and those who hated Pinochet. I was happy he was dead but it was also sad because he never went to jail for all the awful things he did, the people he tortured, those who were disappeared. I don’t understand why he tortured people. I will never understand this. You can put people in jail, you can interrogate them, but torture is…nothing, nothing in my opinion can justify this. So many people were so damaged by the torture he inflicted on them. I can’t even read books about what happened because I start and I can’t finish. It’s too much…It’s too close because of Roberto, because of my father. 

Roberto couldn’t go back to Chile, because it was painful for him. l so I came to England to see what it was like here before deciding to make it my home. But when I became pregnant my mind was made up because family is very important to me.  I left everything to come to England, my family, friends, my country, but I did this to be with Roberto because I love him. I like a lot of things in this county, but if it was my decision alone I would never leave Chile. I am still in love with my country and I will always be, its part of my identity. It was so difficult to leave. I feel like I’m in the same position as my parents who could never go back, and Roberto, who can never go back. It makes me feel so sad. Chile is a beautiful country, there are so many good things. It’s not the fault of the people that there’s all this division. I think people in England don’t appreciate what they have, they’re always complaining about what’s wrong with England. 

What I really want is to do now is to practice psychology again as this is my strongest strength. I feel there is a lot bureaucracy and that there’s so much regulation around the psychology profession here and no one to tell you what to do. I was so depressed until I found Refugee and Migrant Network. My life changed because I thought oh yes, I can do something here.

Boubacar's Story

My name is Boubacar Diallo.


I was born in Guinea-Conakry, West Africa. Guinea is a beautiful country but it is not a democracy. When I left, in 2005, it was ruled by a dictator: Lansana Conte.  Conte was the president of a military regime. He ensured country’s wealth stayed at the top, in the hands of the powerful, and never reached the people. The minister for the economy, Sidya Toure, was opposed to this and started trying to change things: reducing the lifestyle of the government and stop paying wages to protégées. He created a political party, which became very popular, especially among students.

In 2005 I was in my third year studying law at University. A demonstration against Conte’s regime was held near where I live. As Conte drove through the streets people were shouting and throwing stones. The army, with guns and their intimidation tactics, responded fast. They started arresting people who lived in the area, some disappeared, some were killed. They demanded a list of everyone who was a member of the UFR’s opposition party. My name was on that list. Soon after the demonstration they came to my house. I was at University but they spoke to my mother and sisters and asked where I was. Then they came to the campus and asked to speak to me. At the time I wasn’t worried, I was a student I wasn’t afraid of anything. They took me to the police station and held me there for two days. That was not fun, not fun at all, they treat you very roughly. When they let me out they told me ‘next time we catch you, you’ll be in trouble’. This is how it starts, they push you and push you harder until one day they frame you with something and your family will not see you any more. So I went to lay low in another town called Forecaria, close to the border with Sierra Leone.  After two weeks the police came back to my house. This was different, I knew that if they found me I would be in serious danger. My Uncle came to Forecaria. He said ‘things are getting really bad, we’ve got to find a way to get you out of here’. My Uncle’s a businessman, he’s very well-connected, so he took me to Freetown in Sierra Leone and put me in touch with an agent who came to take my picture. A few days later he came back with a passport and told me we were leaving. I asked where we were going but he wouldn’t tell me. When I got to the airport and saw we were going to England I said ‘What! What am I going to do in England?’

The day after I arrived in London, the agent took me to the Home Office. I had an interview with a French interpreter then they put me in a van and took me to Harmondsworth Detention Centre. Harmondsworth was hard. There are some bullies down there. The officers…sometimes you can’t blame them, they’re just doing their job, but sometimes you think…this is too much because when people are in there they’re stressed. You see that in people’s faces, you see people crying. I just tried to keep myself busy going to the library and the mosque. After a month I was told that my claim for asylum had been refused. I went to the court to appeal, and ten days later they refused that as well. From Harmondsworth I was taken to Dover detention centre. I stayed there for seven months. All the time they were saying ‘we’re going to take you to your High Commissioner to issue your travel document and then we’re going to take you back to Guinea.’ I knew I would suffer when I got there, but I accepted my position. After five months I was taken to the High Commissioner, but nothing happened. Two months after that I met a lady from an organisation that helps people get out of detention. Her name was Marion. She helped me to apply for bail and on the second attempt it was granted. Marion arranged for someone to come and meet me and I went to stay with her in Canterbury.  When you come out of detention it affects you to a point that you don’t even want to watch a film in which there are prisons or prisoners. It affects you directly, psychologically. But being in detention was good in some ways, because if something happens to me now I can always think I’ve been in worse situations.

After two weeks in Canterbury I contacted a friend in London who said I could stay with him. He gave me an English grammar book and a dictionary so while he was at work I started teaching myself English…complicated language isn’t it? I said to myself the best way to integrate into society is to learn the language. If you can’t communicate with people you’ve got no chance. I went to the library every morning and I went through those easy reading books and practiced. The things I didn’t know I looked up in the dictionary…a lot of memorising. When my friend got home from work I practiced speaking with him. Don’t worry about making mistakes, I told myself, just express yourself. My solicitor was saying I should go to college but I couldn’t because asylum seekers had to pay.

During this time, in 2006, while I was waiting for the High Commissioner to issue a travel document I was reporting to the Home Office in Croydon every single week. But my friend couldn’t afford to give me money for food and transport so I had to find a job. As an asylum seeker I wasn’t allowed to work but I needed the money so there was no other way. I thought, even if they catch me I’ll just tell them, I’m not getting anything from the government, I have to live somehow. I couldn’t just sit not doing anything. I got a job in the zerox department of a company. One day they told me they wanted to hire me properly and move me to a better department, which would have been great, but I couldn’t risk it so I had to leave. I found another job selling gas and electricity, which paid quite well. I lived like this for four more years until in 2010 my solicitor wrote to the Home Office and asked them to review my case. Finally, five years after claiming asylum, I was granted indefinite leave to remain.

Since I got my status I’ve done a TEFL course and I volunteer at Refugee and Migrant Network Sutton helping students in the English class. I’m also doing a journalism course at the moment but I don’t want to be journalist because my sister is one and she’ll think I’ve copied her. I’d prefer to work in media communications and show people what’s happening in my country.

Country Profile: DR Congo

Reported by Miss Kongo Kimbagu

In my home country, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the government has inflicted violence on its people for more than ten years. The population are at the mercy of the army and police.

The police and the military stop people and threaten to arrest them unless they are paid.

Me and my friend were once walking home from University when two armed officers came over and arrested us.  They said that if we didn’t give them money they would rape us. I didn’t have anything other than my mobile phone and some jewellery I was wearing, so I gave them those. But my friend tried to resist and the soldiers started taking off her clothes. She gave them twenty dollars, which was all she had. There’s no choice. You just have to give them everything you have in your possession.

The reasons behind this are complex. One aspect is that the police are not paid enough. To live a comfortable life they get money out of people by arresting and harassing them. Another factor is that the government are not powerful enough to control the army, they’re not powerful enough to control the police, you don’t feel their authority.

At the heart of my country’s problems is a valuable mineral called Coltan.

In the East of Congo a mineral called Coltan has been discovered. It is used to make mobile phones and laptops. Big companies are doing all they can to get as much Coltan as possible. They use children, six and seven year olds, to work in the mines. The government knows this but they do nothing to stop them because the companies are such powerful lobbyists. In fact, the Congolese army help them to gain control of land that can be mined for Coltan. The strategy they use is to harass, intimidate and abuse the people living on the land to force them to leave. Rape is their most powerful weapon.

In the East of the country 48 women are raped every hour.

I used to live in Kinshasa, the capital. But in the East of the country the violence is far worse. The police and the military rape women over sixty and even children are not spared. They violate them in so many ways, they insert objects into their wombs, they cut off their limbs, things that are just horror, horror. More than five million people are dead because they do whatever they can to get them off the land, and if they don’t go, they kill them.

Following the election in November 2011, Joseph Kabila will remain in power. The credibility of the election is widely contested by international observers.

The atrocities that have taken place in the last ten years were all under the rule of Joseph Kabila, who came to power through a coup d’état in 2001. He won the election on 28^th November 2011, but it was not a democratic victory. International observers from the EU, the UN, NGOs and the Catholic Church were all present during the elections, but they rejected the results because there were too many inconsistencies. He was not our people’s choice. After all that he’s done to our country Joseph Kabila will remain the president. People will continue to get raped and killed. Children will be used in the mines. So today the Congolese are just desperate. They don’t know what to do now.

Please make our voices heard because we feel alone in this.

Fiona's Story

My name is Fiona Pinoya.

I am a refugee from Uganda.

When I was fifteen years old I was abducted by a friend of my father and forced to marry him. I remember that day very well. It was the day I finished my high school exams. He picked me up from the gates of my boarding school. He told me we were going to meet my parents in Kampala. But my parents weren’t there. He kept me in his house for one month, telling me my parents were coming to join us soon. When my parents found me they thought I had run away with him, they were very angry. They thought I had brought shame on the family and forced me to marry him. This man was more than twice my age. I hated him, and I was afraid of him.

When I was seventeen, my husband was murdered by government troops.

One night, at two o’clock in the morning, we were woken by a banging on the window. A man called from outside and told my husband he was needed in the office straight away. They wouldn’t even let him change out of his pyjamas. He left. He said ‘I’ll see you later’ but I never saw him again. When he didn’t come back home I started looking for him. I went to where he worked and was told that twenty-eight people had disappeared from the city, and that they were probably in prison. My husband was abducted because he was a member of the former government of Milton Oboto. I kept asking questions to find out what had happened to him. Finally, one man at the prison said to me

‘all I can tell you is that a group of prisoners tried to escape. Most of them were shot, some were caught, some were buried alive, some were thrown in the water, some were burned in tyres. I don’t know whether your husband was one of those who was shot, or one of those who was buried alive, or one of those who were burned inside a tyre.’

When I was 18 I was abducted by rebels from the Lord’s Resistance Army.

When I found out that my husband was dead I went back to my parents house in the village. One night rebel soldiers from the Lord’s Resistance Army came. They forced me to walk for nine miles with my six-month-old daughter on my back. But they didn’t know that my Uncle was part of another section of the Lord’s Resistance Army. So my younger brother got on his bicycle and rode fourteen miles as fast as he could to get my Uncle to tell them to bring me back. When he arrived he argued with the rebels, but finally they let me go. I knew I had to get out of Uganda. If I’d stayed I faced three possible futures: either I would be abducted by the rebels again and forced to live as a slave, or I would be taken by government forces and killed like my husband or I would have been inherited by my husband’s brother.

It is tradition in our culture that when your husband dies your brother of your husband will inherit you. Whether you love them or not they will take you as a wife. When you’re a woman you don’t have a say. If you refuse, they will take you by force and your family will not have a say. If you still refuse, they maim you or kill you. I went straight to the capital city, to Kampala. Through bribery I managed to get a passport and bought a flight ticket. I didn’t care where I went, I just had to escape. The ticket they gave me said Entebbe to Heathrow. I thought Heathrow could be in Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi or Congo, any next-door country. When the plane transited in Nairobi I asked the airport staff ‘Where is this Heathrow?’ That was when I found out that Heathrow was not in Africa at all…it was in Europe, England.

I arrived at Heathrow in December wearing a thin chiffon dress. I was freezing.

The first few months were very lonely. When you come from an extended family and you come to a country where people don’t talk to each other - even your neighbour you may not know for months - it was very difficult to start making friends. It was cold, I didn’t know anyone and I didn’t know where to buy African food. Then one day a lady called Jackie McLoughlin came to my door. She said she was from an organisation called Refugee Network Sutton. She introduced me to some other Ugandan girls. I made friends and went on a trip organised by Refugee Network to the seaside. That was when I first tasted Fish and Chips.

Refugee Network Sutton helped me to study. Jackie enrolled me on an IT and English course at Carshalton College. Another lady noticed how I dress, that I always take care and look smart. She said ‘Fiona, you should be a fashion designer’ and I thought, yeah, I think I can do that. So she helped me to apply for Fashion and Textiles at Croydon College. I went on to do a BA in Arts and Fashion Design at the University of Sussex. Even then Refugee Network Sutton continued to help. They got me equipment like a sewing machine, a computer and portfolio to store my work.

The people at Refugee Network Sutton are like family to me. They supported me, they encouraged me, they gave me self-esteem.

Srikanthan's Story

My name is Srikanthan Sivarajah

I am a refugee from Sri Lanka

One day when I was out fishing with my Uncle our boat was attacked by the Sri Lankan Navy. They were firing at us with machine guns. My Uncle was killed on the spot and I was shot several times in the stomach. I fainted from the pain and when I woke up I found I was on a different boat surrounded by members of the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam). They took me to their camp and treated my injuries. The leader of the camp asked me to join them. I agreed and was given weapons training. During my time serving the LTTE I was injured by gunshots in my shoulder, hand and head. Because I didn’t receive proper treatment my injuries became incurable and I can’t move my left hand or shoulder even today. In 2002 the LTTE and the Sri Lankan government signed a ceasefire agreement. The LTTE gave me a short period of leave to see my family. While I was at home I fell in love with a girl from my village and we got married.

When the LTTE asked me to resume my duties I told them I wouldn’t. I told them I wanted to stay with my wife and that I couldn’t fight because of my injuries, but they wouldn’t listen. They put me in prison for two and half months. When I was released they made me do office work. After a few months, I had the opportunity to escape and I went to my wife’s house. I stayed with her in hiding, supported by her relatives and by charities who came to the area after the Tsunami in 2004. This was the year we had our first child, a baby boy. His sister was born a year later.

After a change of government in 2006, the government started targeting LTTE members, their families, supporters and anyone linked to them. I was very afraid. If the LTTE found me I would be severely punished for running away, and would be in great danger in the heart of the fighting. If I was caught by government forces I would be killed. My wife’s family raised the money to pay an agent to get me out of Sri Lanka. I travelled to Negombo Airport with the agent. He told me to follow him through the immigration control without talking to anyone. When we arrived in England I called my cousin who lives in London and he came to pick me up.

After I was granted refugee status I applied for family reunion and my wife and children came to join me. My cousin helped us find a house but couldn’t afford to support me now that my family had arrived. Me and my wife went to RMNS and saw the advice worker Anna. She helped us to apply for benefits including Disability Living Allowance. When we get any letters we don’t understand we take them to her and she explains what they mean and helps us reply. Anna invited us to the free English classes at RMNS. I go every week and my language is improving.

I have terrible memories of what I saw in combat with the LTTE. I can’t sleep at night even though the doctor has given me sleeping tablets. Anna suggested that counselling might help. She arranged for me to meet a therapist at Sutton Counselling, now I see her every week.

To protect Srikanthan's identity, his name has been changed. This video clip puts his story in context. The full length film: Sri Lanka's Killing Fields can viewed here.

Thiyalini's Story

My name is Thiyalini Srikanthan.

I am a refugee from Sri Lanka.

I’ve never heard my father speak. When my mother was pregnant with me he got throat cancer and lost his voice. He had a pipe in his throat. My parents’ lives were very hard. My mother worked on a market stall and looked after my father. We didn’t have electricity. One day, me and my sister were making a table when she knocked over a gas lamp. The oil splashed onto her face and body and caught alight. She was so beautiful. Her whole body was burned.

During the civil war our village was often bombed. My friend’s house, three doors away from mine, was bombed. They were all killed. I saw their limbs on the road on my way home from school.

My husband grew up in the same village as I did. He was nine years older than me and had many injuries from fighting in the LTTE army. My parents didn’t want me to marry him but I loved him. He’s a good man. In the end they said ‘it’s your life, you can choose’. When we married he was in hiding from the LTTE because they wanted him to go back. He had to move away because they came to our village to look for him. He left when I was pregnant with our second child. I didn’t know where he had gone because it was dangerous for him to contact me. Sometimes I got calls from someone saying he was my husband asking me where I was. But I couldn’t be sure it was him. It could have been the LTTE looking for him, or the Sri Lankan army. It was very dangerous for me in my village.

The LTTE fighters and the Sri Lankan Army raped many Tamil girls and took their children. I couldn’t stay. But I needed permission from the Sri Lankan army to take the boat from Jaffna to Colombo. I was afraid. I tried to make myself look dirty before I spoke to them so they wouldn’t try to rape me. I didn’t tell them about my husband. There were many other people trying to make the same journey and we all had to wait to find out whether we could leave. We had nowhere to sleep except the road. Even if we had money we couldn’t buy food because the soldiers refused to sell us anything. I had brought some rice and sugar with me and we survived on this, eating a little of it each day. Those who ran out of food ate fruit from the trees. On the fifteenth day they let me and my children leave.

In Colombo I arranged passports and we went straight to India. At first a kind relative of my husband let us stay with her. But after twenty-five days she told us that she couldn’t keep us any longer. So we had to go to a refugee camp called Rameswaran. In the camp they gave us clothes and some food but it was not a home, people called it jail. There were thirty-five people sharing three rooms and three toilets. There was no running water, just a well. The roof was made of leaves, it leaked and didn’t protect us from the wind blowing off the sea. I was so glad when I found a job looking after elderly and sick people. With this money I was able to rent a room. After three years living in India my husband made contact with his relatives, who told me he had gone to England. My sister sent money to him to pay for a lawyer and he arranged for me and the children to join him. I went to the British Embassy in Madras to get the stamps in our passports.

When I arrived in England I was very happy. My life changed forever. Straight away I was certain I want to live here. There are lots of friendly Sri Lankan people where I live in Merton. My children go to swimming classes. My husband encouraged me to go to Merton College to learn English. On my first day I was very scared. Everyone was white. I couldn’t speak to them, but I’m much better now. 

Mohammad's Story

My name is Mohammed Noorzi. 

I am a refugee from Afghanistan.

My father was a senior commander in the Taliban. He was very rich, he stayed away from home a lot. One day, when I was fifteen, I came back to the house in the evening and some of my father’s staff were there. It was strange because they didn't normally come to the house. Then I saw my father’s body. He had been shot. I don’t know who killed him. It could have been the government forces or NATO soldiers.

My father’s brother wanted me to start working with him for the Taliban as a lookout. But my mother didn’t want me to get involved in that. She was afraid I would be killed as well. If I’d stayed they’d have made me work for them, so I left the country. My mother’s brother paid an agent $13000 to get me out of Afghanistan. My father's family will kill me if I go back.

It took six months to get from Kabul to London. We started walking through Iran. The agent and me walked for five days until we found someone to drive us to Turkey. In Turkey we got inside a lorry and drove and drove for a very long time. When we stopped and got out I asked the agent which country we were in but he pushed me against the wall and told me not to ask questions, that it was none of my business. We took a small boat to another country, I don’t know which one, maybe it was Italy. On the other side we found a car. We drove for two days and then got on a train. The train took us to Calais, the place they call the jungle, where everyone lives who is trying to get to England.

In the jungle the houses are made of cardboard boxes. It was snowing. I was so cold. I stayed there for forty days, just waiting for the agent to tell me what to do. At last he took me and some other boys, who were Kurds from Iraq, to some shops on a motorway. I didn’t know the word for it then, but now I know its called a motorway. There were lots of lorries and some of the drivers had gone into this shop, Lidl. The agent opened the door of the lorry and told us to get inside quickly. We hid between the boxes and waited. We stayed in the lorry for a day. When it stopped the agent opened the door and told us we were in England, then he called someone, got in a car and went. I never saw him again. We didn’t know where we were so we walked to the nearest town and asked someone where the police station was. I told the police why I can't go back to Afghanistan. 

The best thing about England is that everyone can study. Studying makes me feel good. In Afghanistan my younger brother can’t go to school, he has to work as a driver.