Episode 1 Exodus: Our Journey

This programme contains some scenes

which some viewers may find upsetting

In 2015, over one million people smuggled themselves into Europe.

BABY CRIES

For a year, we followed some of their extraordinary journeys

across 26 countries.

We filmed them as they left their homes and families behind.

Across continents, all the way to their final destinations.

And they used camera phones to record the places

no-one else could go.

This is the story of the migrant crisis,

told by the people who risked everything for the dream

of a better life in Europe.

I survived Isis, I survived beheadings, I survived Assad.

I survived shellings.

I survived the sea.

I survived everything.

I was almost killed for a stupid idea called the UK.

In Izmir, finding a smuggler wasn't hard.

They're everywhere. The very first night we got there,

I was walking up in Basmane Square and they approach you being, like,

"So, you want to go to Greece?" As if you're...

This is human trafficking,

but it was that easy.

They portray it to you as if you're going on a 5-star yacht

into the island and you'll be fine. "Don't worry about it."

But they are... They lie, they're full of lies.

'Don't trust them.'

HE SPEAKS IN OWN LANGUAGE

BOY SHOUTS

I was scared, to be honest.

I was really scared.

That area is full of wrong things.

Human traffickers,

people who've ended up on the side of the road selling things to carry

on with their journeys.

The worst part of it is to make fake life jackets.

Because we later found out that the majority of them...

make the person sink instead of float.

-NEWSCASTER:

-At dawn this morning, this group came ashore on the Greek island of Kos...

-The islands are seeing a huge rise in migrant arrivals...

-..Flimsy inflatables, evidence...

In 24 hours, more than 40 have died trying to cross...

But these are desperate people.

Many trying to leave countries in conflict.

-..Eight were found this morning...

-..22 people were killed...

He'd drowned trying to cross from Turkey.

The image of Alan Kurdi's body washing up at this spot

has profoundly shocked this country.

We had to stay for four days in Izmir,

because there was a storm and the sea condition was very awful,

so he would call us every day and be, like, "We can't go today,

"so next day, hopefully." Next day, next day, next day.

Syrians who have already done the journey post it on Facebook

and they estimated that it'll cost around 3,000 euros

to get you to Germany or Sweden.

I knew that I wanted to go to the UK, so I had to, like, add...

two extra thousand, so it was, like...

It was 5,000 euros.

Some people are like, "How can they afford that, the refugees?

"How come they have that much money?"

Not knowing that refugees fled Syria not because they're poor.

They had money.

But it's not safe for them to live there any more.

And refugees, a lot of them,

they sold their properties to do this journey.

They, literally, sold their property.

Sold their houses, their shops, their cars.

Practising for tonight.

One, two, go.

Before we took our journey, we heard that there was a boat

in which five people died, cos the boat went down and five people died.

And you wish you...

You can do something about it. You wish you can change this,

but you can't. I...was helpless back then.

And that's what happened to a lot of people.

We're still waiting for the truck.

It's supposed to arrive to pick us...

To pick the rest of us, around 20 to 30 people.

30 people in here, to the point.

I don't know why, it's been... It hasn't been... It's a bit windy.

It's a bit windy today.

According to the application,

the wave height's going to stay less than 60 centimetres.

But I just didn't see it happening to us.

You don't actually believe that your boat is going to go down

and we're going to die. It should be fine.

It's... It's 2. 2.10.

We're heading to the point.

We got there, and we were around 90 people.

I was like, "Well, that's going to be great. If they split us in half,

"we'll be 45 on the boat. That'll be great."

The first boat is on...

They put around 35 people on one boat,

and...they were, like, "Go!"

And what scared me the most is that they asked one of the refugees,

one of the people who are going to go on the boat, they were, like,

"Come. We will train you on how to operate the engine."

And I was like, "Oh, my God!"

Cos this is someone who has no idea, he has never done this,

and they train him in, like, three minutes?

And it was around 60 people left and there was one boat.

This is not going to go right. This is not going to be OK.

Oh, my God.

WATER SLOSHES

CHILDREN CRY

There was a kid who was sitting right in front of me on the boat.

And when I got in the water, he was, like, crying,

but he was looking at me and he was, like...

-HE SPEAKS IN OWN LANGUAGE

-..as in, like, "Sir...

"Please do something. Call the coastguard or do something."

And I'm like...

..I was so helpless, I...

I wanted to do something, but I couldn't help him.

It's just seeing, seeing the fear and...

It's not, I mean, I've...

For some... I mean, we're...

We're young men, we can have it, we can do it, but to see that, like,

to see that kids are going through this and they're crying for help

and they're pleading for you to help them or do something.

He was, like, literally, he was, like, "Just do something,"

and he was crying. To witness that is just hard.

After half an hour, the coastguards showed up.

The Turkish coastguards showed up and they...

We all got on the... On their...

We were rescued, all of us.

Luckily no-one died.

No-one drowned.

And we were taken back to the coastguard station.

The treatment was good. They gave us food and water.

And then, after a while, we...

After they took our information, they released us,

after, like, a couple of hours.

Then we went back to Izmir.

Back to square one.

Nobody wants to leave their country and risk dying in the sea.

But when it becomes impossible to live in your own country...

..people will do desperate things.

Mama!

Mama! Mama!

Mama! Mama!

Mama!

Mama!

GUNSHOT

HE LAUGHS

GUNSHOT

GUNSHOT

LAUGHTER

First, when we landed, everybody was very happy, was very excited.

Then we had to call the Greek police.

They came and they put us in a group and we started walking and walking

and walking and walking for three hours.

I started smelling the air.

I thought, "Is the air different from the Middle East?"

-You know?

-HE SNIFFS

I thought, yeah, I convinced myself that it's new, it's different,

because you don't want your hopes and dreams to let you down.

We had a small boat, contained 88 people -

Syrians, Afghanis, Iraqis and Iranians.

Yeah. The smuggler said, "If you don't shut up,

"we're going to shoot you in the head". It was quite horrible.

-INTERVIEWER:

-And what was the crossing like?

It was quite peaceful.

It was on a quiet, peaceful night, sitting on the bench of this boat,

enjoying the view.

It was quite easy, to be honest.

I never felt scary about it.

When the police get people on the shores,

they bring them right away to this place.

Sounds like this is, you know... "Hotel Captain Elias,"

an abandoned hotel.

What is now a permanent refugee camp.

And by the way, this camp is in a very bad situation,

because there's no electricity.

HE PLAYS A TUNE

I couldn't stay here.

I prefer to go to a hotel.

I've saved some money for a hotel, you know.

I couldn't live here. I can't live here.

So this is Oscar Hotel.

This is my place for the time being.

I've been staying here for the last...

seven days.

I think this hotel has about, almost 400 or 500 rooms

and mainly occupied by Syrians.

Please, come in.

You're welcome.

Get in. Come on, man. You're my guest now.

And this is me. This is where I sleep.

This is the books I'm reading.

The Oxford Pocket Dictionary.

I bought it back in Syria. One of my best of friends ever.

And this is my humble refrigerator.

I've got a lot of jam here, water and bread.

And here is my balcony.

I spend most of my time here sitting, reading,

planning how I'm going to reach to my destination.

Yeah.

The UK. The United Kingdom.

'I never wanted to leave my family behind.'

But I know someone from my town

who took a boat from Libya to Italy.

And he lost his entire family -

his two daughters and his wife.

I can't imagine watching my, my...

my daughter, or my child, and my wife

dying in front of my eyes, drowning.

Me and my wife, we agreed

that I will travel to the UK...

..and they will later on join me.

After three or four days from

being off the grid, we finally made it.

Finally made it to Greece.

The boat capsized.

We lost all our shit, all our bags were gone.

Here, it's disaster.

As you can see, refugees are everywhere.

They're mostly from Afghanistan, some are Syrians.

This is where we spent our night last night.

We don't have anything on us.

Especially, especially me.

I mean, I only have now my shorts, my T-shirt and my...

my running shoes. Everything's lost, basically.

-Um...

-CHILD SCREAMS

When we landed in Greece...

expectations didn't align with reality. I...

In my mind, I thought it was going to be this organised structure,

where there are...

NGOs, volunteers, people helping out, but it was...

It was very chaotic.

A new boat just arrived,

so what the people do here, they steal life jackets

so they can sleep on them.

Cos you're basically sleeping on the ground

if you're not sleeping on one of them.

I was kind of pampered in Damascus.

Like, I had everything.

I had my car, I could go back to my room, I had my own room.

Sleeping in my own bed.

I didn't sleep on the side of the road ever.

Never in my life I slept on the side of a road.

And never in my life, actually, I went camping.

I never went camping. I always wanted to.

And I think I've done my share of camping by now.

But I...

I just didn't... I wasn't used to this.

And most of those people were traumatised.

They've left their countries, they almost died on the way.

And no-one was there to help out.

No-one did actually care.

I was shocked, cos...

I thought, like, "This is Europe."

I thought it was going to be different.

When you reach any Greek island, the police need to fingerprint you.

Once you're in the system...

you get a piece of paper.

This piece of paper allows you to take a ferry

and go to the mainland in Athens, so that you can continue your journey.

I spent about 20... About 20 days waiting for that piece of paper.

And on a daily basis, there were a lot of new people arriving

and the numbers increasing and increasing and the tensions

increasing, you know, in that place.

I think the names, our names will be announced now.

I'm not sure, but they say...

And I was very angry, like, inside.

Because 20 days...

I can reach America, not the UK.

Syrians and Afghanistanis, sit down. Everyone sit down.

NAMES ARE CALLED

So, after... They arrived and they asked if someone can speak English,

and I took... I volunteered so I can say the names.

Luckily, our names were included.

We have the paper and now we're going to go and book to Athens.

-This paper allows us to take the ferry...

-We made it! We made it!

The way to Athens!

Very excited about it.

I've never been on a ferry in my life and when we went on it,

we were, like, "Oh! This is what I would travel in the sea with."

I mean, I don't mind going to Canada on this ferry!

Cos is legit. This is how people are supposed to travel,

not on a nine-metre dinghy.

We showered on the ferry, we had something to eat.

One of my friends was, like, "Can you sink me now?"

HE LAUGHS

I wanted to contact my family.

My place was under siege.

There's no electricity.

The reception towers, they were all blown up.

I spend sometimes two, three weeks never hearing from them.

Sorry, I'm... It really is very urgent that I'm taking the advantage

that she has got reception, so I'm trying to text her, you know.

For the first time in...months.

SKYPE RINGTONE

Hello?

HE SPEAKS IN OWN LANGUAGE

Hello?

Hello?

Hello?

OK.

HE SPEAKS IN OWN LANGUAGE

Wow!

You know, she said, "III need to...

"to hang up, because I can't even speak."

There's a lot of people around her, you know.

And she's very afraid of speaking, because now she's in a place

under the regime's control, you know,

and cos I'm stupid, I'm asking stupid questions about

how is the situation and how is Isis and how is...

So she's...

So she told me, "Don't speak.

"I mean, type it, so I can type for you, so no-one can hear me."

(Oh, shit. I don't know.)

Oh...I really don't know.

No! No, sir. No.

Oh, my God, look at that.

There. The horizon.

It's England.

To find out about the effect social media and smartphones

can have on the refugees' journey,

go to bbc.co.uk/exodus and follow the links to the Open University.