Macedonian policeman finds happiness with Iraqi refugee
‘It was destiny,’ says the Orthodox Christian who wed Kurdish Muslim
KUMANOVO // The scene was hardly conducive to romance.
She was a sick Iraqi in a wave of refugees trying to enter Serbia, while he belonged to the stern Macedonian police force keeping guard.
But Noora Arkavazi, a Kurdish Muslim, and Orthodox Christian Bobi Dodevski fell in love after they met at the muddy border in early March. They were married four months later.
“It was destiny,” 35-year-old Bobi says over tea in the small flat he shares with his wife in the northern Macedonian town of Kumanovo.
Noora, 20, is from Diyala, an eastern province of Iraq. She says at one point ISIL militants kidnapped her father, an engineer, and demanded thousands of dollars for his return.
Early this year, Noora and her brother, sister and parents abandoned their home and began a long journey west, crossing the border into Turkey, taking a boat to the Greek island of Lesbos and entering Macedonia.
While her family continued towards Germany, Noora remained in Macedonia after Cupid’s arrow struck.
“I had a simple dream to live with my family in Germany,” she says. “I didn’t imagine a big surprise for me here.”
When she first met Bobi, Noora, who speaks six languages, was ill with a high fever and was desperate to know if her family could cross the border into Serbia.
The other police officers directed her to Bobi because he spoke English well, and he made sure she and her frail mother were taken care of with medical aid and blankets.
“He said ‘ just don’t worry, everything will be very good in your life’,” Noora says, laughing over the fact that he could not stop looking at her.
Twice-divorced Bobi says he knew he had found someone special. “When I saw Noora for the first time, I saw something good in her eyes.”
In the coming days, while the migrants waited in limbo in the Tabanovce transit camp, Bobi and Noora spent more time together – he would take her and her mother to markets to buy food and clothes. Noora, who had begun helping the local Red Cross, liked the way the tall policeman would play with the migrants’ children, unlike some of his colleagues. The Macedonian force has faced criticism for its treatment of migrants, particularly for firing tear gas at some of those trying to cross the border from Greece.
One evening in April, Bobi invited Noora to a restaurant, where she recalls him acting extremely nervous, drinking lots of water and shaking. Then he suddenly proposed.
“I told him no, you’re joking, but maybe 10 times, he repeated this, ‘will you marry me?’”
Noora eventually said yes, but she worried about her parents’ reaction to her marrying a non-Muslim.
She told them: “I chose a good man for my life and I will marry him. I don’t want to marry another guy.”
But they were “so nervous and angry”, she says.
Noora is reluctant to talk about her family now, except to say she is relieved that they are living safely in Germany. Noora and Bobi celebrated their wedding in Kumanovo on July 13, her birthday, in front of 120 guests of “every religion”, including her Red Cross colleagues.
“It was a very beautiful and fun wedding,” says Noora, describing the live music and dancing that continued into the early hours.
The couple now live with Bobi’s three children from previous marriages, and Noora is expecting their first baby. Migrant numbers at the nearby Tabanovce camp have dropped off sharply since the so-called Balkan route was effectively shut down, although some still cross the region with the help of smugglers. Bobi hopes their romantic tale will encourage other young people to overcome barriers to be with the one they love.
“Noora and I want to tell people to believe in yourself and believe in love – and in destiny.”