Kurdish refugee’s reunion with Dutch man who gifted her bike 24 years ago goes viral
“He’s been helping refugees since the 90s. He was so happy to see me. He was proud that I’d become a strong and brave woman. He said that was his wish for me when I was small,” Babakar wrote on Twitter.
“He thought the bike was too small a gesture to make such a big fuss about, but he’s really glad that it was the key to bringing us together again,” she added in another tweet.
Her trip to the Netherlands was part of a journey she decided to embark on to revisit all the countries she spent time in as a refugee.
Babakar also traveled to the Kurdistan Region where she spent three weeks before her trips to Turkey, Russia, and the Netherlands. On Wednesday, she traveled back to her home in London.
According to Babakar, the journey was meant to help her understand the deeper meaning of being a refugee.
“I have a much stronger appreciation [of] how difficult that time was for me and my family in a way that I never really had as a child,” she told Kurdistan 24.
The story of Babakar’s reunion with Egbert has been shared all over the world, on social and traditional media.
“Never in my wildest dreams did I think this story would resonate so strongly across the world,” she tweeted. “I’m completely honored and humbled by the response. How we treat each other is everything, big actions or small. At the end of the day, it’s the measure of us all.”
“If anyone wants to give me a book deal to write this all up I’m really open to offers right now,” Babakar joked.
Editing by Karzan Sulaivany