Smuggled into Britain, the Taliban runaway who struck Olympic
Final leg of suicide bomb boy’s long journey to freedom
IN THE first extract from his gripping book last week, Gulwali Passarlay told how he fled his Afghanistan home aged ten when the Taliban tried to make him become a suicide bomber. He then embarked on a terrifying odyssey across Europe, where he was tortured by police, shot at, and made to live in squalor. Here, Gulwali recounts his final journey to Britain, his desperate efforts to find his long-lost brother – and how he even played a role in the 2012 London Games…
THE banana lorry we had sneaked aboard in Calais wobbled forwards. There was a clanking noise as each axle passed over a ramp – and excitement surged through the trailer containing me and six other guys. ‘We’re getting on the ferry to England,’ one whispered.
For the next 45 minutes we sat in silence before I finally detected a discernible sway, a gentle rocking motion. We were on our way.
After an hour or so, the lorry burst back into life. We had made it. We started to talk more loudly – it didn’t matter if we got caught. Eventually, the doors swung open, and four police officers stood there. I sniffed British air for the first time. It smelled of freedom.
As I was aged only 13, I was taken to Appledore, a unit in Kent for migrants young enough to be registered as unaccompanied children. However, after a month there, I felt isolated and alone.
I had come to England to find my elder brother, Hazrat, who had fled Afghanistan at the same time as me, but whom I had not seen for many months – we had got separated at Peshawar airport in Pakistan. But nobody seemed interested in helping me. In a country of so many people, how did I even begin?
The nightmares I had endured during my subsequent journey across Europe returned and I would wake up screaming. In the night, scenes would come back to me: almost drowning while on a boat full of migrants in the Mediterranean, and being held in an interrogation room in a police station in Istanbul.
At one point, angry at the lies I was telling, two officers led me to the top of a stairwell, spun me around and then shoved me backwards – before grabbing my hair at the last second to stop me falling.
By the time I reached Calais, where I had to negotiate the hell on earth that is the migrant camp known as the ‘Jungle’, I hadn’t cared whether I lived. Now I really wanted to die.
But one day I was in my room at Appledore when some of the others at the unit knocked on my door. ‘Gulwali, open the door,’ one of them said. ‘We need to tell you something. We’ve found Hazrat.’ The next day I was shaking as a care worker at the unit handed me the phone. ‘Gulwali?’ said the voice on the other end of the line. I started to sob. After that, it became a blur. Hazrat was almost hysterical with joy. He had arrived in England six months before, and was living near Manchester. He had been granted two years’ leave to remain as an asylum seeker. His social worker arranged for him to visit me a few days later. We spent the day together, sharing stories of our journeys. After he left, all I could think about now was getting out of Appledore to be with him. But bad news was to follow: I was refused asylum because the authorities were insisting I was lying about my age and I was in fact aged 17.
In March 2008, I was given a new social worker, who helped find me a flat in Gravesend with other asylum seekers. It was noisy because the others played music all night long, and my loneliness intensified.
One day I bought a bottle of paracetamol and swallowed all the tablets. My flatmate found me unconscious and I was rushed to hospital for treatment.
It was while I was recovering that I decided I should go to Manchester to be closer to Hazrat. When I reached the city, some friends of my brother told me about a special education centre called Starting Point.
The head teacher agreed to see me, and as I sat in her office drinking a hot chocolate, a feeling of calm washed over me. The next words she said changed everything for me: ‘Gulwali, I believe you [about my age]. You can come here to study.’
I think, during this time, I was overwhelmed by it all. After all the battles to survive, I couldn’t quite cope with the fact that my life was now improving. At night I still woke up in sweats and tears as the nightmares gripped my soul.
In fact, things got so bad that I tried to kill myself again – and this time I very nearly succeeded. Hazrat only found me because he came to visit me unexpectedly. He rang 999 and I was rushed to hospital. As he cried by my bedside, he made me swear I would never do something so silly again.
‘Did we go through all this just so you could die on me, Gulwali? What will I do if I lose you?’
During this time, one of Hazrat’s friends was deported to Afghanistan, but before he left he promised to make contact with my family. He later emailed me a mobile phone number for my mother, and we were able to speak for the first time in two years. Just hearing her voice changed everything.
Finally, the Home Office wrote to me saying that they would reconsider my case. It was like being born again – the happiest day of my life. This was followed by the news that Hazrat was allowed to become my legal guardian and we were able to rent a house in Bolton. Starting Point had convinced the Home Office about my age, so I also found a place at a mainstream school.
In October 2010, when I turned 16, Hazrat had to go back to Afghanistan to be with my mother and our siblings. It was very dangerous for him, but they needed him so he had to risk it.
After he left I was found foster parents in Bolton – Sean and Karen – and settled in well. In September 2011, I went to Bolton College to take my A-levels in politics and economics, philosophy and Urdu.
I was thrilled my results of one A and two Bs – not bad for a boy who just four years earlier spoke only a few words of English and who came to England in the back of a banana lorry.
And then, finally, came the news I had been waiting for: I had won my appeal. I had been granted asylum.
There is a Pashtu saying which roughly translates as ‘feeling too big for our clothes due to pride’.
In 2012, I stood in Bolton town hall with my foster parents by my side. I had fresh clothes, and I was definitely feeling too big for them. My former teachers had encouraged me to apply to carry the Olympic torch ahead of the London Games. And I was here at a ceremony because I had been selected!
When I later ran through the streets of my adopted home town, the torch burning brightly and people cheering, I thought only of one thing – my mother. At that moment I knew, beyond all doubt, that I hadn’t failed her. I had made it.
I now telephone my mother once a week. But perhaps the hardest thing of all that I have been through is that when we talk, we have so little understanding of each other. My life here is so different from what it was like in Afghanistan.
By sending me away to Europe, she definitely saved her son, but she also lost him. She, of everyone, paid the heaviest price. But she will always remain my inspiration.
The Lightless Sky, by Gulwali Passarlay with Nadene Ghouri, is published by Atlantic, priced £18.99. Offer price £14.24 (25 per cent discount), until October 25. Order at www.mailbookshop.co.uk – p&p is free on orders over £12.
‘I sniffed the air – it smelled of freedom’