REFUGEES

Every time I’ve spoken with refugees in camps and reception centres around the world, someone comes out with a surprising story which brushes away convenient generalisations. On one occasion in Somalia, a man emerged from a throng of bored, starving families speaking perfect English, with a clipped Home Counties accent, and brandishing a laminated certificate. It transpired that he had been educated in the UK, then returned to his native Somalia to teach, then fled to Yemen at the height of the war, and had now had to go back to Somalia because of another conflict. In Bulgaria, a scruffy guy squatting in an abandoned army barracks produced a photograph proving he was a former Syrian national football coach. In the UK, I spoke with a highly-respected young bank manager who came across the English Channel in a lorry after years in the hands of people traffickers.