A beauty queen escapes from Ethiopia to become a refugee in Britain
Selamawet Teklay, a famous beauty queen in Ethiopia's civil war-torn Tigray region, recounted the harrowing journey she made to cross the English Channel and seek asylum in Britain.
According to the BBC, Selamawit traveled to France last year before risking her life to cross the Channel on a boat packed with migrants.
The British network website stated that, after the outbreak of civil war in Tigray in late 2020, Slamawit had no choice but to escape after an arduous and frightening journey during which she faced death until she arrived on a boat to the territory of the United Kingdom, she said.
"Three or four days after arriving in the UK, the third batch of passengers tried to cross the canal," she said. "We didn't hear any good news about them, they all drowned. Two of my countrymen were among the dead. I knew one of them as he was a resident of a town. Michael... I cried for myself, I cried for my countrymen, I cried for my father. My mother and father did not know that I would come to this country in this way."
"When I embarked on this trip, I told myself it couldn't be worse than what I experienced in Tigray, we witnessed terrible things there," she added.
And she continued, "But crossing the sea is very dangerous and no one should try to do it, I never imagined that I would leave my country, I had no desire for it .. When I traveled abroad to participate in beauty pageants, I always came back to National".
"All my dreams have been shattered. I am now an asylum seeker in the UK," she says. "First they put us in a hotel, now they give me a shared house and some money to buy food... I am not allowed to work in this country until the decision is made. In my case... I started my life again... Everything happened without any planning, everything looks like a theatrical drama."
The only daughter of her parents, when she was sixteen years old, participated for the first time in a beauty contest, the Miss Virgin Mekelle contest, and a few years later, she participated in the Miss Ethiopia contest in 2015, to participate in the year 2017 in the international beauty contest. Miss Grand International in Vietnam.
She won some of the biggest prizes in that competition in which she represented her country for the first time, which opened up a new field of opportunity for her.
Then she participated in another international beauty pageant in South Korea, Miss Beauty and Talent, in 2018.
She also participated in a beauty and special skills competition held in China in 2019.
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