Mustafa and his family are waiting in a Hungarian refugee centre when I meet them. With his mother, his uncle and his siblings, he is hoping to be granted permission to cross the border into Austria.
"It's dark the other side of the border," Mustafa tells me. He's not talking about a literal darkness, but rather the darkness of the unknown that awaits them. It has been more than nine months since he and his family left their home in Iran. Originally from Afghanistan, Mustafa's parents left the country before he was born, forced out by decades-old instability and conflict. The situation for many Afghan refugees in Iran has become untenable and the family made the difficult decision to leave. To reach Hungary they travelled through Turkey, then to Greece via the Aegean Sea, to Macedonia, and then through Serbia.
Mustafa recalls the complicated and confusing reality of his journey. Each country has different procedures and forms to be filled, different authorities to contend with, different ways of doing things and perhaps most telling, different forms of welcome – or not. As Afghans, Mustafa and his family are ineligible for EU relocation, which means that for now at least they are expected to either keep on waiting, or return home. It's an impossible and heart-breaking choice given all he and his family have endured to make it this far.
Mustafa uses a single word to describe the sea crossing from Turkey to Greece: "terrifying". It was only after two failed attempts that they finally reached the Greek shore. Twice their boat was turned back by Turkish coastguards. Mustafa describes the stampede to get on board. Sixty-five desperate passengers crammed into a boat built to hold 45, setting off into the midnight darkness.
What strikes me most as Mustafa recalls the journey is how he describes being forced to throw everything they carried with them into the sea in order to lighten the boat's load. Afterwards I reflect on what he shared. What would it feel like if I had been forced to leave behind my home and everything I owned? What if the few things I had carried with me, like family photographs, were also then lost to the sea? It is a darkness, and distress, that few of us can imagine.
Thoughts of light and darkness have remained with me since I returned from Hungary. Throughout the Bible we are instructed to bring light to dark places in the world. Refugees like Mustafa and his family, and the 65 million people in the world today who have also been forced to leave their homes and seek protection and sanctuary, know only too well what it means to live in a dark place.
At Christian Aid, and as Christians, we believe that there is the image of God in all people. All of us are entitled to be treated with dignity and respect, to be able to hope, to see light. Yet all too often, refugees receive neither dignity nor respect. Hope wanes as rich and wealthy nations turn their backs on people in need. Swathes of the UK media promote and perpetuate a dehumanising narrative to describe people seeking sanctuary. Our government continues to show a shameful reluctance to welcome more than the minimum number of refugees.
Earlier this year Christian Aid launched a campaign to Change the Story about refugees. As an organisation born out of the European refugee crisis in 1945, we are as committed now as we were then to stand up for people who are marginalised and demoralised, for those whose lives are marked by conflict and poverty, for those who experience injustice in whatever form. We are determined to tell a story that upholds people's rights, that challenges the toxic rhetoric, and that enables people who have been forced from their homes due to unimaginable suffering and impossible choices to believe that the light will come again.
Jenny Brown is Christian Aid's senior EU relations adviser. Find out more about Christian Aid's Christmas Appeal #Lighttheway by visiting christianaid.org.uk.
