BY ELISA MIGNOT, SCIENCES PO, SPECIAL TO THE MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

"We were living in a truck when the Americans attacked," said the man in a low and shaky voice. "We hid behind the driver's seat."

He was perched on a chair in the refugee service of Amnesty International in Paris, recounting his odyssey with his wife and three children from Iraq to France.

His name is Yeshar, he is an Iraqi Kurd from Baghdad and he said he faces sure death if he has to go home.

"We went all the way to Istanbul," he continued. "We stayed there for five months. Then, we took a boat, next a train and a boat again. We arrived at a big harbor. There were some Arabs, they told me to take another train to go to Paris. It was at this moment, I realized I was in France."

Waves, roads and rails brought him to another confusing landscape, this one made up of offices, wretched papers and endless interviews. Now he winds his way through the halls of French justice, pleading his case for political asylum to judges and bureaucrats who sift through thousands of stories like his every year.

The asylum system in France, as in other western countries, is not like other courts.

BY MITCHELL WU, MEDILL NEWS SERVICE
Photos by Mitch Wu

Undocumented migrant praying Calais, France

"I want to tell [the world] that they should help us," he says. "We cannot stay here."

Every evening, at this empty loading dock in Calais, France, charity workers bring him and dozens of other refugees food and tea.

The weather here is wet and colder than Paris. With winter approaching, it's only getting worse.

Ashraf is still a teenager, but like all the others we talk to, he looks years beyond that. Most of them are from Afghanistan, and in many cases, their stories overlap. They've endured many hardships to get here. They've left families behind and spent all their money. Now they're stranded in Calais.

BY SETARREH MASSIHZADEGAN, MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

Magdi is different from the other four million Iraqi refugees who have been displaced since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

That he has survived a kidnapping in which he was left for dead may not make him distinct. Magdi was born in Egypt and has returned there with his family. But it is the fact that his children attend Egyptian public school that he and his friends consider miraculous.

For Iraqis who have fled their war-ridden country to seek a secure life in Egypt, accessing education for their children is of high priority. An estimated 80,000 to 150,000 Iraqis now reside in Egypt, but the influx until recently was so persistent that accurate numbers are hard to come by. Most put their children in costly private schools because as far as they know, public schools are off limits to them.

"He made impossible things by putting them into government schools," Rafi said in English of his friend Magdi, who spent six months acquiring the paperwork to prove that his two young children were also Egyptian.

"He got permission from the (education) minister himself," another friend, Ahmad, added, also speaking in English.

BY KATHERINE GLOVER, MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

After three years in the United States, 25-year-old Mohammed went back to his home in Baghdad, Iraq, to live with his mother and younger brother and sister.

He thought with Saddam Hussein gone, everything would be better. He didn't realize the city had fallen into violent chaos and his U.S. ties would put his family in danger.

This is the story of Mohammed's time in Iraq and his struggle to get his family safely to Syria.

He has asked that his last name not be used for the safety of his family.

To listen to the story, click on the screen.