Eerily reminiscent of young Jewish children escaping Nazi Germany during World War II, reports are coming in about unaccompanied Syrian minors – children younger than 18 – making the dangerous thousand-mile journey across half of Europe on their own.
The fact that these children are journeying alone is either resulting from a terrible misfortune, a deliberate choice by the family (a heart-wrenching calculation of a hopeful long-term gain) or, in many cases, an act of desperation.
“My parents believed I had to get out of there before I was forced to fight for Daesh [ISIS],” says Mazen Hassoun, a 16-year-old Syrian boy who recently arrived in Berlin on his own. “We didn’t have the money to bring the whole family, so it was decided that I would make the journey.”
