Tearful Moment With Merkel Turns Migrant Girl Into a Potent Symbol
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Version 0 of 1. ROSTOCK, Germany — She stared down Greece and embraced her role as the rules enforcer of the European Union. But one teary-eyed young asylum seeker from the Middle East turned the tables on Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany last week, raising questions about her compassion and focusing attention on Europe’s central humanitarian dilemma. It was a moment that almost never happened. “I wasn’t at all planning on talking to the chancellor about the refugee topic,” Reem Sahwil, a 14-year-old Palestinian, said in an interview in her family’s apartment here on Monday. But talk about it they did, at a public youth forum in this north German city on Wednesday, with the video of the exchange circulating widely on the Internet. The tears Reem cried upon hearing Ms. Merkel say that, no, not all asylum seekers can stay in Germany, have made the shy teenager the fresh face of Europe’s crush of recent arrivals. Reem is one of hundreds of thousands from the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere who have arrived in Western Europe in recent years seeking safety or opportunity. Germany receives among the highest number of asylum applications in the European Union. It can be years until they are processed, and, as Ms. Merkel noted, many are denied. Applicants like Reem’s family, who came to Germany largely for economic reasons, are considered alongside those who are seeking a haven from persecution. Yet pending legislation is giving young, well-integrated asylum seekers like Reem new hope for a longer stay in their adopted countries. An overhaul of residency laws would allow certain under-age asylum seekers who have attended German schools and have been assimilated the opportunity to stay in the country permanently, along with their parents. For those foreigners, the legislation “finally offers the prospect of a lawful and humanitarian residency,” said Aydan Ozoguz, the country’s commissioner for immigration, refugees and integration, in a statement. These changes, Ms. Ozoguz continued, would “conclude years of uncertainty for many of those and their families who have temporary visas and have long since found their new homes here.” Reem counts herself among those recent arrivals who feel at home in Germany. “I’ve been treated well,” she said, perched on a pink bedspread populated by stuffed animals. She, her two younger siblings and her parents live in an anonymous housing block outside the city center. The apartment was provided by the government. Reem’s parents are prohibited from working while their asylum application is under review, and the family lives on a small government subsidy. Reem, speaking in fluent German after five years in the country, said she wished to study and to live permanently in Germany. She wants to work as an interpreter or English teacher so she can help others overcome communication barriers that she herself knows well. “I see how needed it is when immigrants arrive here,” Reem said. She was born in a refugee camp in Baalbek, Lebanon, in 2000. Her birth was two months premature, and she has a shortened Achilles tendon and cerebral palsy that has partly paralyzed her left side and made walking difficult. Her father, Atef Sahwil, struggled to pay her medical bills on what he made as a welder. In the summer of 2006, as the war between Israel and Hezbollah upended their lives in Baalbek, the Sahwils fled to Syria for a few months, living in another refugee camp. After the family returned to Lebanon, Reem broke her right leg in a car accident. “It had to be my healthy leg,” she said, laughing and pointing to a thick scar on her forehead, another reminder of the crash. After years of insufficient care, the Sahwils applied for a visa for medical treatment in Germany in 2010 and flew to Düsseldorf for an operation on Reem’s back. Her family paid for the trip with money lent by Mr. Sahwil’s employer, as well as with donations from the Red Cross, relatives and neighbors. “We approached strangers, just knocking on the door and asking for help,” Reem said. It was the first of many medical procedures she would undergo in Germany, prompting her family to stay and apply for asylum. “Papa just couldn’t deal with it anymore,” Reem said of the family’s difficult life in Lebanon. The Sahwils first applied for asylum in Sweden, but their application was denied because European Union regulations stipulate that the first union country that a refugee enters is responsible for processing the application. The family then returned to Germany and submitted an application for asylum. Reem said that although the application was rejected — as she told Ms. Merkel during their tearful encounter — the family is appealing for additional consideration. Regardless of the result of those efforts, Roland Methling, the mayor of Rostock, has said he will do everything in his power to help families in his jurisdiction like the Sahwils remain in Germany. “Germany, Europe and especially Palestine needs figures like Reem,” Mr. Methling wrote in an email. Reem attends a school with accommodations for disabled students. Her summer vacation began this week. “When I’m in school, I feel like I’m doing something for my life,” she said. She said that her favorite subjects are English and German, in which she was the only student in her class this year to receive a grade of 1, equivalent to an A. Reem was one of several students invited to participate in the public forum with the chancellor last Wednesday, part of a discussion series called Living Well in Germany. “Politics is sometimes hard,” the chancellor said, a remark that some commentators have said showed a lack of empathy. Others have applauded Ms. Merkel’s candor — including Reem herself. “She was honest, and I find that good,” Reem said. |