The story of the 15-year-old Syrian refugee who repeated only 2 words, mistaken for his name: “I’m cold, cover me. Brdan, otani”

He only repeated two words. Obsessively, almost like a chant. And he returned those only two words as a response to those who helped him after the car he was in, together with other people, went off the road after being chased by the police in Serbian territory.

Traveling with three companions

Three traveling companions, one of the many desperate journeys on the Balkan route by those fleeing from Syria still at war, have died. He, Syrian, just 15 years old, no. ‘Brdan, otani’, two lumps of syllables, also said to those who insistently asked his name and surname. And so on the 15-year-old’s identification card it was written: Brdan, name, Otani, surname.

The search for parents

Meanwhile, his parents were looking for him with his real name, Hatem, and with the worst of omens in their heads but were unable to get any news. “A family contacted me who was desperately looking for their son, a 15-year-old boy who had left Deir el-Zor. According to the story of a survivor, he was in a car that had derailed following a police chase, inside in which three other people died. I looked for him for many days and he seemed to have disappeared, swallowed up by Serbia”, says the Moroccan activist Nawal Soufi who managed to track down the boy and give him a name and surname. Generalities which, however, those who had helped him had linked to those two, obsessive but precise words repeated in Arabic, his language: Brdan, ‘I’m cold’, otani, ‘cover me’.

The registration

Because on the identification card of the Serbian authorities the 15-year-old Syrian was registered exactly like this: name, ‘I’m cold’, surname, ‘cover me’. Nawal Soufi, an Italian-Moroccan human rights activist who deals with rescues at sea but also with those arriving from the Balkan route and has been a volunteer in Greece, stubbornly managed to track down the boy and in front of that card she understood why the family, even through the authorities, was unable to get any news. “Only then did I understand why I couldn’t find him in the days following the accident. They recorded him with the only words that he kept repeating”, adds Nawal.

The absurd words

Two words, although distorted by transliteration, which as soon as they met the gaze of those who know Arabic appeared absurd for being the boy’s personal data. But they tell better than anything the story of those who, to escape wars, violence and misery, face journeys that are sometimes hopeless, in the cold, without clothes or help. ‘I’m cold, cover me’, the name of every refugee.u