Flight from a War-Torn Country

A young Syrian boy growing up in Damascus finds himself and his family in the midst of a brutal war of repression waged by the Al-Assad government against its own people. As friends and relatives are imprisoned and murdered, Bashar becomes increasingly active in efforts to help his family stave off hunger and the cold of winter. At 14, his family, fearing for his life, sends him to Turkey to avoid conscription into the Syrian army and to find medical help for his ailing father. He is abused by employers in Turkey and tries to cross the Mediterranean to Greece. The first time, the smuggler's rubber raft is returned to Turkey, the second time it sinks and the survivors are again returned to Turkey. The third time Bashar makes it to Greece and internment in the infamous Moria refugee camp. From Greece, he is chosen by the government of Finland to fill a quota of refugees to be transferred to that Nordic country. Although he is now safe, he suffers from trauma-induced psychological problems that are only cursorily addressed by the Finnish social welfare system. The author, himself an American immigrant to Finland, develops a close relationship with Bashar - now a young man - and tries to help him deal with the many problems he faces in his new life. Bashar's story reveals both the resilience of teenage unaccompanied asylum seekers and the limits of a one-size-fits-all response by host countries to their assimilation.