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We are in the reception center for refugees in Kovachevtsi. We are talking to Mohammed, a 37-year-old Syrian. Next to him is his wife, Zahra Mohammed. They have 4 children.
We ask where everyone is and Mohammed explains that his eldest child is upstairs because he has cerebral palsy and has difficulty coming out. The family entered Bulgaria about 16 days ago, on the 13th.
- What happened? How 
did you get here
When they arrived it was quite cold, and on the way from Turkey one child fell ill - Hamudi at the age of 6. It was quite difficult until they got to Bulgaria. The little one was coughing and had a fever and got lost in the woods. They spent 2 and a half hours there in complete darkness, then crossed the border and spent two more days at the border police station. The only consolation was that they were together.
In the morning they performed a medical examination of the child and then an ambulance took him and Zahra to the hospital in Yambol. Mohammed said: "And you, as you know, take the phones at the police station. My wife and child were absent for eight days and no one gave me information about what happened to them. " The other children were with him, and so was his sister.
Then they brought them here, in Kovachevtsi. He explained to the Red Cross that part of his family was missing two days later - they were already together. They were separated for 11 days and knew nothing about each other, had no phones and no connection. Zahra says she cried a lot.
We ask them a painfully familiar question - why did they leave Syria (at this point they bring the boy, suffering from cerebral palsy, in a wheelchair)?
Mohammed explains that they are from the Kurdish part of Syria and it has been under siege for about two years, and even providing medicines has been extremely difficult. Prior to the events, Mohammed worked as a car mechanic, but since there were serious problems with electricity in the area, he stopped working:
We ask them how they imagine the future? What do they plan to do?
"We want to be in Syria, but there is no life there anymore. That is why we came here to Bulgaria and we thank the Bulgarian government for accepting us. We don't know anything yet, let's get a status and we will think about it. "
Don't you have a specific idea of what you will do when you receive status?
"The most important thing is that I saved my children, we will think about the rest later."
Asked what they need, Muhammad said: "In principle, we lack nothing, but our status is most important so that we can get out of here, take the child to the doctor and everything he needs."
Is there any treatment for him at the moment?
"Before the war, we often went to the capital Damascus and they put a special" big shoe "or something similar to move his legs, but since it all started - there was no way to go there. Then these groups started to appear and there was no way we could travel freely all over Syria, because if they catch you, they will kill you. "
Weren't you in a wheelchair when you walked through the woods?
"No, we carried it on our backs from Turkey" (Mohammed explains that the two carts they currently have are from the Red Cross).
Mohammed, are you scared? Did you think you would never see your loved ones again?
"I was worried because I was being flown here and my wife and one child were in hospital, but I couldn't talk to her to reassure myself that everything was fine. I was worried about being taken to another place where I couldn't find her any more. I hardly slept at night, when the sun came up I went out the door to wait for them. We are very grateful to Bulgaria, to the Red Cross, to everyone, because if there was one more day left with this inflammation, the child could be gone, and now he is cured and well. "
