Afghan boys: the new face of Europe's migrant crisis, The job in the Moscow barn was annihilation like Elyas and his brother had been promised. They loaded and unloaded trucks from 4 in the morning until 8 at night. They got two canicule off a year. Their backs ached.
So if the Afghan teenagers heard endure abatement that the bound to Norway was open, they went for it. They sneaked into their manager's appointment at night, blanket about $1,000 in banknote and fabricated the cruise by plane, auto and bicycle.
Now Elyas, 17, is in a apartment for unaccompanied amateur in Alta, in the northernmost allotment of Norway, cat-and-mouse to apprentice if he will be beatific back. He moves lethargically, and the aphotic circles below his adulterated eyes accomplish him attending sad and tired.
"I can't beddy-bye at night," Elyas says, his articulation bendable and breakable as he tells his story. "When I abutting my eyes, all the bad things appear back."
Elyas, whose acknowledged guardian in Norway asked that his endure name not be published, is one of the tens of bags of Afghan teenagers who showed up on Europe's doorstep endure year, in conceivably the a lot of abrupt and arduous aspect of the casual crisis. In a amount of weeks endure fall, Sweden abandoned accustomed added than 20,000 adolescent Afghans — equaling the amount of unaccompanied amateur that activated for cover in all of Europe the year before.
"I accept been in this business for a actual continued time, but this was the a lot of arresting development I accept anytime seen," says Anders Ryden, an Afghanistan able at the Swedish Clearing Agency.
As asylum-seekers beck into Europe, the amount of unaccompanied accouchement and teenagers a part of them all-embracing is soaring. In Norway and Sweden, about one in 5 endure year was a accessory traveling alone, up from one in 10 the year before. Denmark, Finland, Germany, Austria and the Netherlands aswell registered college shares of unaccompanied amateur compared with 2014. Everywhere, Afghan boys led the breeze — not Syrians, who accomplish up the better accumulation of developed asylum-seekers and families.
The departure has put a new, active face on clearing into Europe. But it has aswell artificial Europe's accommodation to accept migrants even more, because amateur traveling abandoned are accustomed antecedence in the cover action and crave absorption from amusing services.
"We had to authorize abounding added accession centers and bigger accession centers that didn't accept any antecedent acquaintance with unaccompanied minors," says Birgitte Lange, agent administrator of the Norwegian Clearing Directorate.
In Norway, two-thirds of the 5,300 unaccompanied amateur who approved cover in 2015 were Afghans. They are now advance out in appropriate shelters beyond the country. The Associated Press acquired attenuate admission to one of those shelters in Alta, a accepted abode to beam the aurora borealis, the amazing affectation of dancing lights that blaze up the sky in arctic latitudes.
Elyas lives actuality in a above auberge with about 40 added boys from Afghanistan, Syria, Eritrea and added countries. Abounding are traumatized by years of war, corruption and corruption in their home countries, or annoyed by an disturbing adventure to Europe at the benevolence of barbarous animal smugglers.
"They are bad people," Abdulkabir, a 15-year-old with a chiffon mustache and blubbery eyebrows, says of the smugglers who took him from Afghanistan to Iran, Turkey and Bulgaria. "When we wish baptize they say 'don't accept water, go fast, fast.' If anyone is ailing they don't stop for him."
Other boys blab bridge the Sahara arid with little aliment and water. One says he anticipation he had a 50-50 adventitious of extensive Europe animate if he fled from a aggressive training affected for teenagers in Eritrea. Addition says he was captured by bandits in Libya who accepted bribe money from his ancestors in Ethiopia. He acutely wants to allocution about what happened to him, anecdotic dates, times and added data of his adventure with abundant precision. If the administrator of the apartment suggests a break, he asks her not to arrest him.
Back from a Norwegian chic in school, the boys play video amateur or billiards. Some are camped in foreground of the TV or at a row of desktop computers, breadth they ability out to accompany and ancestors on amusing media. They baker their own aliment in the kitchen, a new acquaintance for abounding who didn't even apperceive how to fry an egg afore they larboard their families.
Ann Roarsen, one of 5 nurses animate with refugees at the Alta Health Center, says it's not aberrant for the boys to appearance accent symptoms, including affection palpitations, sweating, anxiety, beef affliction and adversity sleeping, already they've acclimatized down from their journey. Some get depressed and resort to advised self-harm, she says, authoritative a acid action over her arm.
"We aswell accept adolescence with baleful thoughts," Roarsen says, abacus that alone those with the a lot of astringent brainy problems are offered psychiatric help.
How to accord with the unaccompanied amateur has become one of the a lot of acrimonious discussions in Europe's administration of the casual situation.
In Sweden, Europe's top destination for unaccompanied minors, not a anniversary goes by afterwards anew accustomed teenagers getting accused of stabbings, fights, abuse or animal assaults. Sometimes the adolescent migrants are the targets of abandon themselves, like in backward January if a mob of masked hooligans vowed to "clean up" an breadth in city-limits Stockholm.
In Alta, the bearings has been almost quiet. The boys say they are advised able-bodied by the bounded residents. Renate Moe, who oversees the apartment and addition one for adults in Alta, says there haven't been any "big issues."
There was an adventure in November, however, if two 16-year-old boys from the apartment were confused to addition boondocks afterwards they were accused of afflictive a 12-year-old Norwegian babe walking home from school. The data of what happened are unclear, but the babe was actual frightened.
"Maybe it was just two boys aggravating to get to apperceive the girl, we don't know," Moe said.
Analysts are still aggravating to amount out why the Afghan numbers soared so al of a sudden in the fall. A lot of adduce a breakable aegis bearings in Afghanistan, breadth noncombatant casualties of the war rose to almanac levels for the seventh year in a row in 2015, according to the United Nations. They say the violence, forth with a bead in prices for animal smuggling and the images of Syrian refugees entering Europe, accumulated to accomplish Afghan families adjudge this was the time to forward their sons abroad.
"They apparently anticipation that you accept to jump on this alternation afore the doors close. Because a lot of accept ample out that eventually or after Europe will abutting up," says Ryden of the Swedish Clearing Agency.
That's already happening. Several countries, including Sweden and Norway, accept stepped up bound controls. Amid suspicions that some who affirmation to be amateur are earlier than 18, the Swedish government affairs to acquaint age tests in cases if there is doubt.
Elyas and his brother were a part of the added than 5,000 migrants who entered Norway from Russia in the additional bisected of 2015.
They were taken to Russia, he says, by a able man in his apple who promised them plan so that they could forward money to their parents. Instead, they accomplished anniversary 16-hour about-face addled and exhausted. Then they slept on mattresses on the barn attic until the next about-face started.
"They fabricated us plan like animals," Elyas says.
The brothers capital to escape to Norway but had no money. That's if they blanket the 70,000 rubles to pay for even tickets to the Arctic city-limits of Murmansk and a five-hour auto ride to the Norwegian border.
They beyond the abuttals on bicycles — pedestrians weren't accustomed across. And they were greeted by affable Norwegian bound police, so clashing the badge admiral they knew from Afghanistan or Russia.
Elyas says he acquainted "like a bird that is free."
After a abrupt break in a bound camp, he was transferred to the Alta shelter. Because his brother is 18, he was taken to an accustomed refugee shelter.
Under the 24-hour winter black of the arctic night, abatement at getting safe gradually gave way to angst.
Elyas, whose case is still getting candy by Norwegian clearing authorities, worries about getting beatific aback to Russia, "where I'm abiding they are cat-and-mouse for me and my brother. If they bolt us I don't apperceive what they are traveling to do."
But a lot of of all he worries about his parents. He hasn't announced to them aback he larboard Afghanistan. They are poor and accept no buzz or Internet access. The anticipation he doesn't wish to think, but that keeps advancing back, is whether they were punished for their sons' escape from the barn in Russia.
"I don't apperceive if they are animate or not," Elyas says. For a moment, he looks like he's disturbing not to abatement apart.
So if the Afghan teenagers heard endure abatement that the bound to Norway was open, they went for it. They sneaked into their manager's appointment at night, blanket about $1,000 in banknote and fabricated the cruise by plane, auto and bicycle.
Now Elyas, 17, is in a apartment for unaccompanied amateur in Alta, in the northernmost allotment of Norway, cat-and-mouse to apprentice if he will be beatific back. He moves lethargically, and the aphotic circles below his adulterated eyes accomplish him attending sad and tired.
"I can't beddy-bye at night," Elyas says, his articulation bendable and breakable as he tells his story. "When I abutting my eyes, all the bad things appear back."
Elyas, whose acknowledged guardian in Norway asked that his endure name not be published, is one of the tens of bags of Afghan teenagers who showed up on Europe's doorstep endure year, in conceivably the a lot of abrupt and arduous aspect of the casual crisis. In a amount of weeks endure fall, Sweden abandoned accustomed added than 20,000 adolescent Afghans — equaling the amount of unaccompanied amateur that activated for cover in all of Europe the year before.
"I accept been in this business for a actual continued time, but this was the a lot of arresting development I accept anytime seen," says Anders Ryden, an Afghanistan able at the Swedish Clearing Agency.
As asylum-seekers beck into Europe, the amount of unaccompanied accouchement and teenagers a part of them all-embracing is soaring. In Norway and Sweden, about one in 5 endure year was a accessory traveling alone, up from one in 10 the year before. Denmark, Finland, Germany, Austria and the Netherlands aswell registered college shares of unaccompanied amateur compared with 2014. Everywhere, Afghan boys led the breeze — not Syrians, who accomplish up the better accumulation of developed asylum-seekers and families.
The departure has put a new, active face on clearing into Europe. But it has aswell artificial Europe's accommodation to accept migrants even more, because amateur traveling abandoned are accustomed antecedence in the cover action and crave absorption from amusing services.
"We had to authorize abounding added accession centers and bigger accession centers that didn't accept any antecedent acquaintance with unaccompanied minors," says Birgitte Lange, agent administrator of the Norwegian Clearing Directorate.
In Norway, two-thirds of the 5,300 unaccompanied amateur who approved cover in 2015 were Afghans. They are now advance out in appropriate shelters beyond the country. The Associated Press acquired attenuate admission to one of those shelters in Alta, a accepted abode to beam the aurora borealis, the amazing affectation of dancing lights that blaze up the sky in arctic latitudes.
Elyas lives actuality in a above auberge with about 40 added boys from Afghanistan, Syria, Eritrea and added countries. Abounding are traumatized by years of war, corruption and corruption in their home countries, or annoyed by an disturbing adventure to Europe at the benevolence of barbarous animal smugglers.
"They are bad people," Abdulkabir, a 15-year-old with a chiffon mustache and blubbery eyebrows, says of the smugglers who took him from Afghanistan to Iran, Turkey and Bulgaria. "When we wish baptize they say 'don't accept water, go fast, fast.' If anyone is ailing they don't stop for him."
Other boys blab bridge the Sahara arid with little aliment and water. One says he anticipation he had a 50-50 adventitious of extensive Europe animate if he fled from a aggressive training affected for teenagers in Eritrea. Addition says he was captured by bandits in Libya who accepted bribe money from his ancestors in Ethiopia. He acutely wants to allocution about what happened to him, anecdotic dates, times and added data of his adventure with abundant precision. If the administrator of the apartment suggests a break, he asks her not to arrest him.
Back from a Norwegian chic in school, the boys play video amateur or billiards. Some are camped in foreground of the TV or at a row of desktop computers, breadth they ability out to accompany and ancestors on amusing media. They baker their own aliment in the kitchen, a new acquaintance for abounding who didn't even apperceive how to fry an egg afore they larboard their families.
Ann Roarsen, one of 5 nurses animate with refugees at the Alta Health Center, says it's not aberrant for the boys to appearance accent symptoms, including affection palpitations, sweating, anxiety, beef affliction and adversity sleeping, already they've acclimatized down from their journey. Some get depressed and resort to advised self-harm, she says, authoritative a acid action over her arm.
"We aswell accept adolescence with baleful thoughts," Roarsen says, abacus that alone those with the a lot of astringent brainy problems are offered psychiatric help.
How to accord with the unaccompanied amateur has become one of the a lot of acrimonious discussions in Europe's administration of the casual situation.
In Sweden, Europe's top destination for unaccompanied minors, not a anniversary goes by afterwards anew accustomed teenagers getting accused of stabbings, fights, abuse or animal assaults. Sometimes the adolescent migrants are the targets of abandon themselves, like in backward January if a mob of masked hooligans vowed to "clean up" an breadth in city-limits Stockholm.
In Alta, the bearings has been almost quiet. The boys say they are advised able-bodied by the bounded residents. Renate Moe, who oversees the apartment and addition one for adults in Alta, says there haven't been any "big issues."
There was an adventure in November, however, if two 16-year-old boys from the apartment were confused to addition boondocks afterwards they were accused of afflictive a 12-year-old Norwegian babe walking home from school. The data of what happened are unclear, but the babe was actual frightened.
"Maybe it was just two boys aggravating to get to apperceive the girl, we don't know," Moe said.
Analysts are still aggravating to amount out why the Afghan numbers soared so al of a sudden in the fall. A lot of adduce a breakable aegis bearings in Afghanistan, breadth noncombatant casualties of the war rose to almanac levels for the seventh year in a row in 2015, according to the United Nations. They say the violence, forth with a bead in prices for animal smuggling and the images of Syrian refugees entering Europe, accumulated to accomplish Afghan families adjudge this was the time to forward their sons abroad.
"They apparently anticipation that you accept to jump on this alternation afore the doors close. Because a lot of accept ample out that eventually or after Europe will abutting up," says Ryden of the Swedish Clearing Agency.
That's already happening. Several countries, including Sweden and Norway, accept stepped up bound controls. Amid suspicions that some who affirmation to be amateur are earlier than 18, the Swedish government affairs to acquaint age tests in cases if there is doubt.
Elyas and his brother were a part of the added than 5,000 migrants who entered Norway from Russia in the additional bisected of 2015.
They were taken to Russia, he says, by a able man in his apple who promised them plan so that they could forward money to their parents. Instead, they accomplished anniversary 16-hour about-face addled and exhausted. Then they slept on mattresses on the barn attic until the next about-face started.
"They fabricated us plan like animals," Elyas says.
The brothers capital to escape to Norway but had no money. That's if they blanket the 70,000 rubles to pay for even tickets to the Arctic city-limits of Murmansk and a five-hour auto ride to the Norwegian border.
They beyond the abuttals on bicycles — pedestrians weren't accustomed across. And they were greeted by affable Norwegian bound police, so clashing the badge admiral they knew from Afghanistan or Russia.
Elyas says he acquainted "like a bird that is free."
After a abrupt break in a bound camp, he was transferred to the Alta shelter. Because his brother is 18, he was taken to an accustomed refugee shelter.
Under the 24-hour winter black of the arctic night, abatement at getting safe gradually gave way to angst.
Elyas, whose case is still getting candy by Norwegian clearing authorities, worries about getting beatific aback to Russia, "where I'm abiding they are cat-and-mouse for me and my brother. If they bolt us I don't apperceive what they are traveling to do."
But a lot of of all he worries about his parents. He hasn't announced to them aback he larboard Afghanistan. They are poor and accept no buzz or Internet access. The anticipation he doesn't wish to think, but that keeps advancing back, is whether they were punished for their sons' escape from the barn in Russia.
"I don't apperceive if they are animate or not," Elyas says. For a moment, he looks like he's disturbing not to abatement apart.
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