Sara and Yusra Mardini or the Mardini sisters fled their war- stricken home country, Syria in August 2015. They fled to Berlin, Germany.
Their journey: they got a flight from Damascus, Syria to Turkey, Istanbul and then they contacted smugglers. The smugglers would take them from Turkey to Greece you have to cross the Aegean Sea. The refugees go from an uninhabited island called Izmir where all 20 refugees had to spend 4 days with no water, food or shelter. From there the refugees take a dinghy, a rubber boat and cross the sea. There were 20 people (including a 4-year-old child) on a dinghy which could hold maximum 7 people. After 15 minutes of leaving the shore the dinghy started to sink, they had to throw all their belongings into the sea but the dinghy was still sinking. 2 men and Sara and Yusra Mardini jumped into the water and swam all the way to Greece. The journey normally takes 45 minutes but it took them three and a half hours. After reaching they went from Lesbos to Athens then to Macedonia, Macedonia to Serbia, Serbia to Hungaria, Hungaria to Vienna (Austria), Vienna to Munich (Germany) and lastly, after a 10-hour bus drive to Berlin.
After reaching Berlin they lived in a refugee camp for six to eight months. Yusra didn't stop her training and her dream of becoming an Olympian while Sara was applying for a family reunion.
Currently: Yusra Mardini is an Olympian and swam for the Refugee team at Rio (2016), and was appointed the youngest ever UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador in April 2017. In 2020, she competed in the Tokyo Olympics for the refugee team.
Sara Mardini went back to Lesbos and volunteered with Emergency Response Center International (ERCI). Sara Mardini volunteered for 2 years along with being a full-time student. Sara Mardini was also imprisoned for an entire year she and 24 others were accused of people smuggling”, “money laundering”, “espionage” and “membership in a criminal organisation”. The charges were dropped in January 2023.
A quote by Sara Mardini (talking about refugees): ‘They want safety. They're not coming to take your jobs. They're not coming to take your money. They're not coming to take your life. They want safety. They want to just sleep at bed and not hear a war happening outside of their window.’
Sara Mardini and Yusra Mardini have a beautiful story which should not just be their story but the story of millions of refugees. Their story is food for thought about the refugee crisis, which needs to be given more attention. We need to be more aware, learn more and help more. We need to help these 89.3 million people who have nowhere to call home.
(To learn more about their story you can read Yusra Mardini’s book called, ‘Butterfly’ or watch the Netflix film called, ‘The swimmers’.)
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