Iraqi migrant who was beaten recently in Karlovac does not want to leave Croatia.
Diyala is an Iraqi province on the border with Iran, where for a dozen years militias of Shiites and Sunnis have been fighting among themselves, as well as with Kurdish Peshmerga forces and strong cells of militants from terrorist organizations, reports Jutarnji List on February 15, 2017.
Hundreds of car bombs and suicide bombers, in addition to strict religious laws, have turned the region into a ghost area. Diyala is also the home of Berdi, an 18-year-old who six months ago used the migrant route to come to Croatia and decided to stay here. He was given an asylum status and the state has accommodated him at the Centre for Education of Children and Youth in Karlovac.
Last week, he was beaten by three men in the streets on Karlovac, for no apparent reason or purpose. He ended up having a complex operation of his face at the Dubrava Hospital in Zagreb, and now he finally returned to Karlovac.
Berdi is a quiet and unobtrusive young man, who never stops smiling. He is charming even now when his smile is not as wide as it could be, due to the consequences of brutal beatings. He is a rapper, with headphones for music around his neck, and on his head he wears a baseball cap. It seems he does not want to share his suffering with anyone, and therefore he rarely speaks about his life in Iraq, the voyage he undertook to come to Croatia, or the attack itself.
“In Karlovac, I have my friends. I like this town very much because people are nice to me, I feel they love me, and teachers here understand me. I would like to continue living here”, says Berdi.
He will talk about the attack, but not for now, he explains. However, he will never talk about his family again. It’s gone. Until recently, he was in contact via online services just with his brother in Iraq, but the brother is gone now as well.
In Karlovac, after being beaten by thugs, he found more new friends than he could ever imagine. He became a hero and a hope for many fearful and hopeless peers and a role model for children in some of the more dangerous neighborhoods in Karlovac. However, there can be no more dangerous neighborhood than the one from which he came to Croatia.
He started going to school and learning Croatian language, and people have already offered him jobs. But, for now he just needs peace to recover. For certain time, he will have to be fed through a straw because he cannot chew due to the operation, and he will also be meeting with a psychologist provided by the social services who will help him cope with the effects of the attack.
