“I was not sure I would see the morning last night,” Sabria Khalaf, a 107-year old refugee from Syria told me in Athens, Greece, in January. She is the oldest refugee in the world.
Sabria’s story is a crossroad between tragedies of war and sectarianism, and a world overwhelmed by the increasing population of refugees fleeing unending conflicts.
I met Sabria in a run-down building in central Athens. I bowed to her. In her frail voice, she thanked me for the visit. She put her hands on her eyes, then her head, and asked God to protect me.
Sabria was frail, fatigued not just by old age, but also by a long and torturous journey that had brought her to this strange city. She was in Athens by chance and did not know the world around her. “I would have made you tea if I was feeling better,” she apologized.