A Syrian Paralympian Who Competes For All Refugees

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IBTIHAJ MUHAMMAD, HOST:

Qualifying for the 2016 US Olympic team was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. It seemed so impossible for so long that I always felt like if I even spoke the word “Olympics,” that it would disappear. That’s how fragile this dream felt. But for an athlete who is displaced, the Olympic dream can seem even further out of reach. 

IBTIHAJ: From Foreign Policy and Doha Debates, this is The Long Game, a podcast about the power of sports to change the world. I’m your host, Ibtihaj Muhammad. 

Ibrahim Al Hussein grew up watching the Olympics on TV. He was a swimmer, and he dreamed of someday being one of the athletes up on the podium. But by the time he was 22 years old, the age when many swimmers are in their prime, he was forced to flee his homeland as one of the 5.6 million people who have left Syria since the start of the civil war. Reporter David Enders has our story. 

DAVID ENDERS:

Ibrahim Al Hussein grew up in eastern Syria in the province of Deir ez-Zor. The city is bisected by the Euphrates River as it flows toward Iraq, linking cities thousands of years old along its winding, reedy path through the desert. 

DAVID: Deir ez-Zor became a contested city, bisected now not just by the river, but by warring factions. In 2013, Ibrahim himself became one of the millions injured by the fighting. He had been hanging out with a friend at his house when disaster struck. 

DAVID: The war meant that treatment for Ibrahim’s injuries was limited, and options for physical therapy and rehabilitation even more so. Seeking better care meant joining the flood of refugees moving overland out of Syria toward Europe, a journey perilous and daunting, even for those in perfect health. 

DAVID: To apply for asylum, Ibrahim needed money to get to Athens, but he didn’t have money for the boat. Other refugees in the camp collected money for his ticket. 

DAVID: It got even better. Ibrahim was one of two Paralympians to compete in Rio and was invited to carry the torch as part of the relay team. The team was formed by the IOC in response to the number of stateless athletes looking for avenues to compete at the Olympics, a number that continues to grow. 

DAVID: Ibrahim also qualified for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, and was training rigorously when I spoke to him in July. But he was also looking beyond the games. 

DAVID: Like millions of Syrians in exile, Ibrahim longs for a home to which he cannot return. 

IBTIHAJ: You’re listening to The Long Game from Foreign Policy and Doha Debates. I’m your host, Ibtihaj Muhammad. 

[LIVELY MUSIC]

IBTIHAJ: I’m joined by reporter David Enders. David, you were planning to interview Ibrahim again after the Tokyo Olympics. What happened? 

DAVID: Well, unfortunately, Ibrahim’s not been feeling well. And that was actually the case before he went to Tokyo. He has a lung injury, and he said that, actually, while he was competing in Tokyo, he was basically doing so with one functional lung, which is kind of incredible to think about. Just another added challenge for him as he seeks to compete at this level. It did seem like he was feeling a little bit down. And when you talk to people who work with refugees regularly, they’ll tell you that mental health is a serious and often unaddressed issue. You’re dealing with people who have experienced, generally, multiple traumas, often having to flee violence and leave their homes, and then make often very perilous and dangerous journeys, like Ibrahim. And so, yeah, I did get the sense that Ibrahim was maybe struggling a bit with depression, and certainly also, he’s dealing with what might be a career-threatening injury, and he just wasn’t up to talking again after he got back to Greece. 

IBTIHAJ: And what’s Ibrahim doing now?

DAVID: So, at the moment, Ibrahim is undergoing treatment for his injury, and he’s also continuing to coach a refugee Paralympic basketball team that he started. He’s hoping they’ll be able to compete in the 2024 Olympics. 

IBTIHAJ: So crossing the Syrian border out to Turkey is not an easy proposition, and it’s really incredible how Ibrahim has managed as an amputee. Talk about the physical difficulties of leaving Syria during this time. 

DAVID: Just the actual act of fleeing into a country without permission — illegally, maybe; however you want to phrase it — can be an extremely dangerous thing. I mean, we see on the US border people being turned back violently recently. In the case of the Turkish border, that is in many places a heavily militarized border and requires crossing, in some cases, minefields. And I’ve done it in the company of refugees on a number of occasions. And as a physically fit person, it’s extremely dangerous and difficult. And the idea of having to do it without being able to walk well, or at all, is just kind of incredible. And then to get oneself from Turkey to Greece by boat, as Ibrahim did — we see on a regular basis migrants drowning in the Mediterranean Sea, because they’re on boats that are not designed for the number of people they’re holding. They’re, you know, sent off with faulty motors by people smugglers, I have to say, I’ve found to be less than honest. 

IBTIHAJ: David, can you talk a little bit about the Refugee Olympic Team, and who are the other athletes that are members of this team? 

DAVID: So the Refugee Olympic Team started in 2016 and was created by the IOC as a response to the crisis we’ve been talking about. Refugee numbers have spiked in the last decade. And the initial team in 2016 — my understanding is it was kind of built around a number of — about a half-dozen runners from South Sudan who were living as refugees in Kenya. And then at the same time, there were other athletes, including Ibrahim, who were petitioning for an avenue to compete at this level, even though they could not represent the countries where they come from. One of the most recognizable is Yusra Mardini, who is also a swimmer from Syria, and famously helped rescue a number of people on one of those boats crossing the Mediterranean from Turkey to Greece. And she and her sister, who were both swimmers, were able to actually tow, effectively, the boat a number of miles to Greece when the motor failed. 

IBTIHAJ: Yeah, I remember Yusra’s story. We were both visa athletes at the 2016 Games, and what I remember about her story is just being in this, you know, seemingly impossible position with her family and other people trying to cross, you know, the Mediterranean, and her leaving the life raft that she was in to swim her family and everyone else on the raft to safety. So there’s a lot of trauma that exists amongst these athletes, but … . The Syrian refugee crisis was dominating news headlines a few years ago, but has received less attention recently. But that doesn’t mean the crisis has ended, right? 

DAVID: Right. The Syrian refugee crisis is, is very much continuing, as are other refugee crises: Afghanistan, Ethiopia, South Sudan. I live in Lebanon, and there are a million Syrian refugees here, in a country with a population of about six million. You know, for the last 10 years, on a regular basis, I visit Syrian refugee camps, some that are, you know, within a couple miles of the Syrian — you can see Syria quite well from where these people are still living in tents after a decade. And right now, winter has begun. The fields are flooding and muddy, and these people literally rent space, you know, in potato fields. And the fact that they still don’t feel safe going back, and are living in those kinds of conditions, just tells you how serious a problem this is. 

IBTIHAJ: In his story, Ibrahim mentioned meeting other refugees from Syria, Iraq. When we look around the world at displaced people more generally, how big is this crisis? 

DAVID: The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees puts the number of refugees worldwide at 82.4 million, and that number has risen substantially. It’s more than doubled in 10 years and is continuing to rise. 

IBTIHAJ: And why is Ibrahim’s story so important? 

DAVID: Well, it might sound trite, in a way, to say it, but Ibrahim’s story is important because — it’s important for a number of reasons. Just as a simple story of what people can overcome and achieve in the face of, of massive adversity, it’s a very inspiring story. But it’s also important, as Ibrahim himself has pointed out, because he’s not unique, unfortunately. So many millions of people are displaced around the world and have had similar experiences to Ibrahim’s. And so really, it’s important, I think — you know, as someone who covers the refugee crisis here in Lebanon, the Syrian refugee crisis, it’s really important for these people to be humanized, because often they live in conditions that are dehumanizing, or they are struggling with host populations who are not necessarily happy to have so many refugees in their country. So, so really, I think part of addressing the issue is helping people see that Ibrahim and other refugees are people just like all of us, and have goals and aspirations that are the same as many of us might have. And so I think it’s really important for that. 

IBTIHAJ: Well, thank you for the work that you’re doing, helping all of us understand that there are actual lives behind that very, very, you know, large number — 80 million displaced people around the globe. I think hearing a story like Ibrahim’s is really helpful. 

DAVID: What you really understand is that this is something that is done in extreme desperation: to cross a border and risk being shot or stepping on a landmine, or being arrested and being sent back. It speaks to why people have to leave. Talking to people like Ibrahim drives home our shared humanity and the necessity to to treat people — who are fleeing for various reasons — as the people they are, so that they can get the aid they need rather than being rejected and put back into danger. 

IBTIHAJ: That’s it for this episode of The Long Game. I’m your host, Ibtihaj Muhammad. The Long Game is a co-production of Foreign Policy and Doha Debates. This episode was produced by David Enders and Karen Given, with help from Dan Ephron, Rob Sachs, Japhet Weeks, Amjad Atallah and Jigar Mehta. Make sure to follow us on Apple or your favorite podcast app, and please leave us a review. To learn more, subscribe to Foreign Policy, a global magazine of news and ideas, or visit Doha Debates, a production of Qatar Foundation. 

Next week on the podcast: As the US and the Netherlands faced off in the 2019 Women’s World Cup final in France, a chant erupted in the stands that had nothing to do with what was happening on the field. 

IBTIHAJ: But in some countries, the fight for equal pay has really just begun. That’s next time, on The Long Game.