Eida Karmi was too weak to make the journey from her war-torn home of Syria to Greece on her own. The 115-year-old woman who is unable to walk fled her country with the aid of a family friend who carried her on his back for some 300 kilometers.
The Syrian elder is considered to be the oldest refugee to flee the conflict in Syria. She made her 3-month long journey traveling from the northern city of Hasaka, Syria to Turkey in efforts to be reunited with her family who she hasn’t seen for five years since they fled and resettled in Germany.
At the time her family fled Syria, Eida refused to leave her homeland. However, as the situation has deteriorated in the country, she left with friend Ahmed, his pregnant wife and their 4 young children all under the age of six.
Ahmed traveled 3 hours from Kobani to Hasaka to collect Eida from her home before he and his family fled the war zone.
In Turkey Ahmed had to pay smugglers to get them across the Aegean to Greece, and the group crossed together, thankfully surviving the dangerous trip.
However, the story does not end there, Eida has been living in refugee camps in Greece, waiting patently to see if her request for asylum in Germany will be accepted so she can reunite with her family.
Her grandson recently spoke to CNN about the situation from Germany and said that the family is “waiting desperately for the day we are reunited.”
Although she is separated from her family, Eida now considers Ahmed and his family her own.
“I can’t walk — and if you didn’t do it nobody would do it, so you’ve been with me the whole journey carrying me and looking after me,” she told Ahmed.
From the Moria refugee camp where they were first located, Eida told CNN her greatest hope is to be with her family.
“The only thing I need in life now is just to meet my children again — to see them,” she said.
They have moved to the mainland and are in Athens living at a reception center and Eida must wait to see if she will be reunited with her family in Germany as Ahmed hopes to resettle his family in Austria.
The story of Eida and Ahmed is not unique as there are over 60,000 migrants currently stuck in Greece as FYROM and other EU countries have closed their borders at the beginning of 2016.
The migrant camps in Greece are over crowded and conditions have been scrutinized by several NPOs as well as the Center for Disease Control and UNHCR. The government has been struggling to build new facilities to accommodate the growing number of migrants arriving in Greece.
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