New Beginnings

chapter 1

Greek plan to stop migrant boats with floating barriers
                                                                                                               BBC (2020)

The roaring sound of the engine pushed the boat further into the darkness. Amal pulled her jacket tight around her body to combat the merciless wind that slammed against her and pressed the cold metal of her necklace on to her bare skin, sending a cold shiver through her body. The sky hung like a dark cloak preventing any light from peeking through, apart from the moon, which sat disinterested and shone fruitlessly upon the sea and those on the boat.

Amal looked around at her fellow occupants on the boat, who had also left a once familiar place and travelled towards alien lands of different peoples, languages, and cultures; the place they had always thought of as their safe place, surrounded by friends, family, and neighbours, had been destroyed and they had now been forced out into an unknown and uncertain world.

She looked to the young children whose childhoods had been stolen, and who had been kicked out of their country which had been the home to their ancestors for generations. Their parents who had risked everything to be on that boat that could capsize at any moment to be given the opportunity to reach a place
where their family can live happily and together in peace.

She had heard hushed stories of how treacherous the journey would be, dehydration, drowning, kidnapping, being beaten or even being killed however none could compare staying in her now destroyed country.