‘We’re just trying to get to Canada’
New book tells the harrowing story of how two men ended up by the side of a snowy highway, close to death, in a bid for freedom
Two Ghanaian men, unsafe in their home country, ended up in Brazil and gambled on separate odysseys through South and Central America to reach the United States.
Seeking sanctuary, they were detained in the vast U.S. immigration system for months before their claims were rejected.
Out of detention but fearing deportation, they met in Minneapolis, by chance, where they decided to embark together on the last, desperate hope: a foot crossing into Manitoba, with the goal of seeking asylum in Canada.
Their perseverance — and particularly their immense suffering from frostbite — became an international story.
Joe Meno tells their stories in “Between Everything and Nothing: The Journey of Seidu Mohammed and Razak Iyal and the Quest for Asylum.”
On the side of the highway, Seidu tried to retrieve his cellphone from his backpack. He had waited to use his phone until he had crossed into Canada, afraid that somehow he might be tracked by his phone signal, but — fingers having gone numb — he found he could not get his digits to work the zipper.
Razak’s cellphone was in his pocket, but because his hands were also frozen, he could not turn it on. Having lost any sort of physical co-ordination after more than four hours in the subzero weather, Razak tore his jacket off with his teeth, removing a sleeveless coat he had been wearing under his topmost layer, then managed to dress himself again. He used the sleeveless coat as something to wrap his fingers in, then turned to Seidu, who had his own hands folded under his jacket.
They had planned on phoning someone for help, to find shelter, but there was no one. It was now 5:30 in the morning and the sun was a far-off wound.
All they could do was carry forward, marking their way beside each other through the unapologetic darkness.
Asign up ahead stated the name of the highway, which Razak stopped to read.
We’re in Canada, he announced. Blinded by the snow, Seidu trusted that it had to be true.
Continuing beside one another, the two men made their way forward through the cold. Each of them walked, each of them struggled to breathe, feeling their bodies beginning to give way. Shape of breath. Wordless fog. What cannot be said or named. The fear, the past, history drifting away. Bodies failing them now. Each footprint a struggle, another small victory. One foot in front of the other.
Blood gone cold in their skin. Hair on the surface rising, trying to heat itself. Muscle fibres shortening. Ninety-five degrees Fahrenheit.
Line of footprints going on, going nowhere.
Ice forming in the corner of their eyes, blurring their sight. A dazzling, futile brilliance. Cold, silent, like the end of time.
One man’s, then the other man’s shadow, one struggling, the other continuing to fight, both moving on.
As hypothermia set in, their body temperatures dropped, hearts and brains slowing, blood becoming absent from hands and feet and toes. Thoughts going quiet. The urge to give in, to fall to your knees, to sleep.
No longer shivering, the cold having struck bone. Muscle and tendon beginning to freeze.
No one was leading, both of them stumbling, the world at a standstill.
Finally there was a sign announcing the town of Emerson in both English and French. The men walked past it, seeing several trains stopped along the side of the road. By then they could no longer feel their extremities, boots, shoes, feet, hands — all deadened by the cold. At some point they were simply unable to keep walking.
On the side of the road they huddled together and waited, giving themselves over to fate. Every 20 minutes, every half-hour, an 18-wheeler bolted by. The men waved their arms and shouted but none of the vehicles slowed down or pulled over. Ten hours had passed since they had left the taxicab. It was as if — feet numb, legs frozen, bodies given over to exhaustion — they were much farther from their destination than they had ever been.
Razak felt his heart beating too hard. He could feel it pounding in his throat, hear it in his ears. He tried to slow his breathing, but his pulse continued to thrum violently.
Eventually, standing there in the snow, unable to take another step forward, he turned to Seidu and murmured, We made it. We at least tried to make it. But if something happens here, we did our best. If we die here, it’s the will of God.
Seidu nodded and then began crying, the tears mixing with the ice stuck to his face. Another vehicle hurried by.
Razak looked at the road and said, I don’t blame them. I don’t blame them.
Razak felt his heart beating too hard. He could feel it pounding in his throat, hear it in his ears
They’re not stopping because they don’t know who we are. Everything that happened here is between us and God. Quiet then. Only silence. Both men, staggered by the cold, continued to wait. Soon Razak, too, began to cry, quietly speaking to God.
If I have done something wrong, please forgive me. Please help us get to where we are going safely. Please.
On the side of the road, both men could no longer stand and fell to their knees, like supplicants, kneeling before the infinite, the highway becoming a church, a temple, a mosque.
Before completely giving themselves over to the ice and cold, both men looked out at the highway and the surrounding desolate fields, praying to God for an end to their suffering. Neither man had any idea what time it was, only that it continued to be dark.
Sometime in the dwindling afternoon, another 18-wheeler approached. The sound of its brakes whining and its tires slowing echoed across the empty road.
Both men raised their arms as the truck paused before them and weakly shouted for help. The truck’s headlights momentarily fell upon their faces and then blinked once before hurtling past.
Neither man thought they had the strength to stand but somehow managed to help each other to their feet.
Their clothes were weighed down with so much ice and snow that Razak, unable to use his hands, could not keep an extra pair of pants he was wearing up around his waist.
He asked Seidu for help, but Seidu, too, could not bend his fingers.
I’m sorry … I can’t … I can’t move my hands …
Even this, after so many hours in the cold, this small act of dignity, of keeping himself clothed, seemed like it too had been taken from him.
When they turned and faced north, both men were amazed to see the lights of the black truck parked some 50 yards away. It was idling along the side of the road.
It stopped … Razak murmured, trying to hurry, dragging his feet along. It stopped. The world fell away as they tried to run, their limbs unwilling, unable to respond.
Finally they could hear the truck’s engine humming noisily as they approached, the vehicle’s taillights illuminating the distance between it and the two men.
Seidu, through frozen eyes, could barely see the shape of the vehicle on the side of the road.
Razak stumbled and decided to kick the outer layer of his pants off in order to move more quickly. It would be hours later before he realized that his remaining money and the Qur’an he had carried with him for 10 years had been left behind in the pocket of his second pair of pants, one of the many things he had lost along the way.
By then the driver had come out of the truck and was helping them up into the passenger side of the 18-wheeler’s cab. He was short and skinny with grey hair, somewhere in his fifties, a white man. He was wearing a sleeveless jacket and looked confused to see the two men standing before him out in the cold, in the middle of nowhere. “Where did you come from?” the man asked. He had an accent of some kind, from Europe or Russia, and Razak was worried about trying to communicate with him in English.
Razak carefully asked, “Where are we?” “You’re in Canada. You’re safe.” Razak nodded. The man looked at them. “Where did you come from?” “The States.” The driver gawked, taking in the desperate sight of them, and said, “I’ve never seen anything like this before in all my life. You’re frozen to death. Come in, come in.”
The unknown driver — who out of fear of losing his job never gave them his name — helped the strangers climb into the passenger side of the cab, Razak up front, Seidu in the back. He gave each man water from a plastic bottle and took paper towels to wipe the ice from Seidu’s eyes, who, by now, was no longer able to speak.
The younger man was sitting on a small bed in the back of the cab, shaking and crying from the frostbite on his hands and face. Unable to drink the water, he spat it out. The unknown driver continued to wipe the ice from Seidu’s face with a paper towel and water.
“Where are you guys going?” the driver asked. “We’re just trying to get to Canada.” “You made it. You’re here.” The man took his cellphone and dialed 9-1-1 and put it on speaker.
The emergency switchboard operator asked, “What’s your emergency?”
The unknown driver leaned forward and spoke. “I need some help. Two people are almost frozen to death over on Highway 75, near Letellier. I’m in a truck.”
“OK. Someone will be there in 10 minutes.”
He gave each man water from a plastic bottle and took paper towels to wipe the ice from Seidu’s eyes