PARIS -

Like many of his compatriots in Paris, Marwaz Saqzi, an Afghan refugee who has been here for four years, sells smuggled cigarettes in Place de la Chapelle.

And because his asylum requests were rejected, he strives to collect a little money every day in search of a new asylum destination in Europe.

"I left my city of Jalalabad in 2017, and after 8 months of risk walking through villages, rivers, forests, cities and countries, I reached Paris," Saqzi told Al Jazeera Net.

Although he applied for asylum 3 times;

The French authorities rejected his requests, and he justifies this by saying, "Because my identification papers are not original, the latter were burned and lost as a result of the war and fleeing from one city to another, but they were not convinced."

In these circumstances, Saqzi says, "I found myself facing my destiny in a big city alone, without help, without financial resources or a place of residence. I found no solution but to sell cigarettes during the day, and at night I look for a place to sleep in the parks and deserted places."

The young Afghan refugee earns between 20 and 30 euros a day, and says that he barely suffices his needs and saves from it in order to travel to England or Germany and win his luck there.

"I'm tired of living in Paris and the daily chases from the police. I'm tired of sleeping in the open, being harassed, ridiculed and blackmailed. Life is hard, harsh and dangerous here, especially when you are without residency papers," complains Saqzi.


surprising welcome

Saqzi's account comes as the French Foreign Ministry announced that the relevant authorities will provide the best conditions to receive the evacuees from Afghanistan after it fell to the Taliban.

According to the Foreign Ministry, France will provide new refugees with medical, psychological and material support upon their arrival.

They will have the support of specialized agencies in applying for residency and in their integration into French society.

In this context, the French Office for Migration and Integration (OFII) announced - at the end of last week - the opening of a special window as of Monday (30 August) to process asylum applications submitted by Afghans who were evacuated from Kabul.

"We still have several thousand Afghans on our lists that we want to protect," President Emmanuel Macron said - in an interview with Le Journal du Dimanche last Sunday.

The UN Security Council approved - on Monday - a draft resolution submitted by France and Britain to establish a "safe zone" in Kabul, which would allow for the continuation of humanitarian evacuations.

After transporting more than 2,600 Afghans via 40 flights from Kabul to Paris, the French authorities announced the suspension of the evacuation of Afghans last Friday.

The last flight arrived on Sunday, with the French consular mission in Kabul.

In parallel, Ian Brusatte, the deputy mayor of Paris, denounced what he described as the "state policy aimed at making the immigrants living in Paris invisible," he said.

"Every evening, the police push asylum seekers, evacuate them from Paris, and return them to Seine-Saint-Denis," he said.

"How can we explain the welcome of new Afghan refugees throughout France, while the asylum seekers who are already on our lands are being chased?" he wondered.

Afghans and solidarity activists demonstrate in central Paris after the fall of the capital, Kabul, to the Taliban (Al-Jazeera)

At the forefront of asylum seekers

According to the data of the Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (OFPRA);

Afghans rank first in the number of asylum applications submitted in France, with 10,221 applications in 2018, and 10,364 applications in 2020, despite the exceptional circumstances of the Corona pandemic.

In reality, stories of Afghan refugees blocking you in the streets, searching for a place to sleep in Parc de Lavalat, or selling smuggled cigarettes in Place de la Chapelle and Saint-Denis are similar.

Diary of escape and chase

Rahmatullah Hanifi, a 35-year-old Afghan refugee, also works as a seller of smuggled cigarettes.

He recounts his perilous 4-month adventure from Afghanistan to France in the summer of 2018.

Hanifi resides in a refugee shelter in Port de la Chapelle, and says, "The trip from Afghanistan to Paris cost me more than 2,800 euros, of which 800 euros I paid to smugglers at the border. And my seven children I left in Afghanistan."

And sells the fiftieth "Sofia" pancakes prepared in the Afghan way, where many people go to in "La Chapelle", and I arrived in Paris after fleeing from Afghanistan to Germany, which lasted 6 months.

"We arrived in Germany and we continued to struggle to obtain asylum and residence," she says, but after more than a year, due to the severe cold conditions, language and integration problems, and the lack of a final response regarding their residence, she decided to come to France.

"But the situation here is no less bad than in Germany. I get up early in the morning to make pancakes and then come to sell them to the Afghan youth who are scattered in abundance here," she adds.

As an asylum-seeker, Sophia receives a grant from the French authorities worth 360 euros, which she says is not enough to cover daily living requirements.

Therefore, it resorts to selling pies in public squares, despite the harassment of passers-by and the police chase."


complex procedures

In another corner of the Place de la Chapelle, the young Afghani Ahmed Zai Khan Walid - who was also selling smuggled cigarettes - spoke about his arrival in Paris with his brother 4 years ago.

"Here we started another journey of agony in order to register for the asylum application which is very complicated, as well as to search for a place to sleep and meet the requirements of daily life," he said.

Despite the difficulties he faced, the young man in his thirties was actually able to obtain asylum.

He said, "I welcome our newcomers to France, because I lived through war conditions and know the harshness of life in Afghanistan. I am happy for those who managed to escape the hell of life there, especially after Kabul fell to the Taliban. The future seems ambiguous and difficult and life will get worse."