Mustafa’s journey

Atlas des Migrants 2017

‘We are not refugees, we are humans,’ summed up Mustafa at the end of a speech in which he patiently retraced the steps of his migratory journey at a cartographic workshop held at Athens’ City Plaza (a squat in a former hotel which lodges over 700 refugees).

This veritable personal map gave a telling account of the physical and mental trials incurred in the journey, and brought to light, through the prism of feelings and memories, an experience of migration that has become a daily occurrence: departure, uncertain stages in the journey, fear, hard living conditions, sometimes the impossibility of finding something to eat or other ways of looking after yourself, racism in some countries, … and the relief of arriving and being able to stay in France, where Mustafa has been since March 2017.

Mustafa was the beneficiary of resettlement procedures established to distribute asylum seekers in the European Union. (See the map Relocalisations et réinstallations: Quand les États de l’UE brassent du vent in the Migreurop Atlas, soon available on line.)

Authors of the map : Sarah Bachellerie and Sophie Clair

Map from: Migreurop (2017), Atlas des Migrants en Europe. Approches critiques des politiques migratoires, Paris, Armand Colin.

The book will be published in English before the end of 2018.