Pakistani asylum-seeker does not wish to return

Ehtisham Haider says he will never be able to get the facilities in Pakistan that he gets in Germany

Ahtisham Haider, like many other Pakistani immigrants, does not want to return to their country.

Ahtisham, who hails from a middle-class Shia family of Gujranwala’s Wazirabad area, was forced to leave Pakistan and take asylum in Germany after his college scuffles snowballed into enmity.

The asylum-seeker alleges that he has had an attempt on his life, in which his brother was shot as well.

A couple of years ago, he paid a local agent Rs600,000 to get to Germany via Iran, Turkey and Bulgaria. It was in Germany when a blood test revealed that he was suffering from Hepatitis C and Thalassemia.



The doctors told Ahtisham to contact a Thalassemia specialist.

With the doctor’s assistance, he was granted temporary asylum in a refugee camp, with a room as his momentary dwelling. He said he couldn’t get the room immediately, blaming the local Pakistanis, who couldn’t narrate his problems to the German authorities accurately.

However, Ahtisham remains grateful to the German government for not only providing such expensive treatment absolutely free of cost but also for the quality of that treatment.

Ahtisham’s fate, however, hangs in balance as his request for permanent asylum has been denied. For the time being, he lives in a small area of Boch in the German capital Berlin, in a refugee camp.

He has appealed against the rejection of his permanent asylum request and now awaits the decision.

Talking to DW, Ahtisham further said he had a lot of dreams coming into Germany, but the reality has drastically taken a turn for the worst.

Thi post originally appeared in DW.