The 26-year-old Afghan and her children are stranded in rural Serbia after she lost her mother and both legs in a road accident

Fatima paid a high price for fleeing her husband. Will Ireland take her in?

In a hospital bed in rural Serbia, Fatima Bakhshi cannot bear to count the things she has lost.

There was her Afghan home which she fled with her mother and children to escape a brutal father and a violent husband. Then her beloved mother too, killed in an accident in an overladen vehicle driven by people smugglers in the Balkans.

Finally, her own legs, amputated after the accident.

But not everything was lost.

“I thought I was dead,” she says. “I thought my life was finished, but then I heard my children, and came alive again.

“My children play, but then they come to me and cry and say that they want their grandmother back, and pray to God that their mother’s legs grow back.”



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Fatima’s children Shoaib, nine, and Ahmed, four. Photograph: Courtesy of Nikos Economopoulos/Magnum Photos

Three months after the crash, the Afghan woman, 26, and her sons Shoaib, nine, and Ahmed, four, are stranded in an old people’s home in the nondescript town of Doljevac, outside Niš in south-eastern Serbia. The staff are warm and caring, but have little common language with Fatima. The boys rarely leave the room. This is a place where most people come to die, not rebuild lives shattered by tragedy.

“Before this happened, I had a good feeling that I could restart my life, but after the accident, I feel I’m hopeless. I miss my family and want to see my mother, but she’s dead. I’ve lost everything,” says Fatima, starting to sob even as her sons charge around the room with new toys sent by well-wishers.

But she hasn’t lost hope, not yet.

Fatima is desperate to be united with her extended family in Ireland, but has been told that this is problematic because of UNHCR and Irish government rules. Instead, she is likely to be relocated to another unfamiliar third country where she has no family ties.

Nadia’s cousins Zekria and Farooq are Irish citizens and among 50 members of the family in Ireland. They are investigating legal processes that will permit Fatima, Shoaib and Ahmed to settle with them, but have drawn a blank.

“The tragedy that has befallen this girl is enormous, beyond belief, and it’s vital for her to be with her family, rather than in a camp or an institution,” her cousin Zekria Bakhshi, a doctor, told the Guardian by telephone from Dublin.

Bakhshi says the family will support Fatima and her sons, and that they will restart their lives and flourish as he did. But he fears for her mental health if she is relocated to another country away from them.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Shoaib and Ahmed play at the old people’s home in Doljevac, Serbia. Photograph: Courtesy of Nikos Economopoulos/Magnum Photos

The UNHCR is supporting the family and has interviewed Fatima extensively; she says she is grateful for the organisation’s help. But a spokeswoman, Mirjana Ivanović-Milenkovski, said the UNHCR did not have a resettlement quota for Ireland, and Fatima must fulfil stringent Irish “family reunification” requirements, including first normalising her presence in Serbia.

“UNHCR has assessed the case … and believes that resettlement to a third country is the most appropriate solution for her and her family. However, Ms Bakhshi insists on being resettled to Ireland, and UNHCR cannot assist with this expectation,” Ivanović-Milenkovski said in a statement.

The Irish Justice Department said it did “not comment on individual cases but each individual case is considered on its merits”.

In the interim, the children are being prepared for school – Shoaib proudly shows a workbook with Dari, English, and Serbian Cyrillic script. There is hope that Fatima can benefit from Serbia’s expertise in prosthetic limbs, developed during the Yugoslav wars.

Some of those working with the family, however, are increasingly concerned about the situation.



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“In Serbia, Fatima and her children, unfortunately, will not be able to get the best possible care, which they absolutely deserve after all they have been through,” says Vladimir Bogosavljević, a clinical psychologist and child protection officer working for local children and the youth NGO Indigo.

“The relocation process has hardly started and hardly seems attainable. Fatima puts so much hope into it and, in her extremely difficult current situation, this hope seems to be the only thing to keep her going. The process which might be even more important for her – the healing process – cannot really start before she ‘settles down’. Fatima would like to be able to care for herself and her children in dignity and with the support of her family members in Ireland.”

Sitting on the edge of Fatima’s bed, Nadina Christopoulou, co-founder of the Melissa Network, which supports migrant women and worked with the family in Greece, says Fatima’s “only future can be in Ireland, with a supportive family around her”.

She adds that Fatima’s case “is indicative of the huge risks faced by female refugees” and what they are fleeing.

“Many have faced gender-based violence. The testimonies we get are unimaginable.”

While they wait for the cogs of bureaucracy to turn, Shoaib and Ahmed learn English, play on tablets, and watch television. They want to be policemen or pilots when they are older, they say.

Fatima teaches her children, brushes up the English she learned on her flight from Afghanistan, and chats with friends on Viber and Skype – a vital virtual network of support. She aspires to be a doctor, but is losing hope about her future.

“I need to be near my relatives to restart my life,” she says. “I have two children and no legs – if they won’t help me, who will they help?”