disability, 23–4, 27–8, 32–3, 130, 221

  ‘disability benefits’, 46, 69, 90, 152, 175, 216, 224

  and execution of Saddam Hussein, 136, 148

  experience in Slovenia, 189–201

  favourite colour, 3, 258

  favourite saying, 31

  fear of flying, 127–8

  goes on school trip, 253–5

  imagines European future, 188

  impressions of Germany, 233–6, 239

  journey to Hungary, 173–85

  journey to Lesbos, 1–8, 139–60

  journey to Macedonia, 166–72

  learns Arabic, 28, 59

  learns German, 207, 224, 234, 254, 258

  leaves Gaziantep, 113–15

  leaves Syria, 104–9

  leg operation, 38, 41–3

  and marriage, 246

  meaning of her name, 13

  meets Shiar for first time, 91

  and Mustafa’s wedding, 96–7

  ‘Nujeen principles’, 31, 135, 239

  and reading, 89–91, 101

  recognised from photograph, 190

  Rhine trip, 263

  speaks English, 99, 115, 148, 151, 154, 157, 177, 180, 184, 242, 265

  suffers asthma, 24, 27–8, 58, 169

  Nuremberg, 218

  Obama, Barack, 117

  O’Brien, Stephen, 256

  Öcalan, Abdullah, 195

  Oliver, John, 225

  Oman, 48

  Orbán, Viktor, 179, 181

  Orhan (cousin), 17

  Ottoman Empire, 15

  Pakistan, 12

  Palestinian family, 199–200

  Palmyra, 117, 119, 255

  Panarbora park, 253–4

  Paris attacks, 237–9, 256

  Pegida, 248

  people smugglers, 134–6

  Perišče, 192

  Pharaoh and the Sphinx, 241–2

  Picot, Georges, 15

  Pikpa camp, 155

  PKK, 83, 195

  Plato, 4

  Political Security Directorate, 50

  Poseidon, 145–6

  Postojna Centre, 194, 201

  Power, Samantha, 260

  Prince (rebel commander), 80

  Princip, Gavrilo, 75, 175

  al-Qaeda, 73

  Qatar, 58, 65

  quarks, 263

  quiz shows, 40–1, 109

  Ramadan, 65, 69–70, 72, 78, 136, 257–8

  Raqqa, 53, 94, 102, 257

  refugees, suffocated in truck, 203, 209

  Reker, Henriette, 235–6, 263

  rihlat al-moot (route of death), 8

  Road to Aleppo, 92

  Rodrigo, Concierto de Aranjuez, 102

  Rosenheim, 217

  Röszke, 178

  S., Frank, 235–6, 263–4

  St Paul, 4

  St Petersburg, 253

  Saladin, 16

  salep, 21

  Salzburg, 212

  Samar, 78

  Samos, 125

  Sardar (aid-worker), 152–3, 158

  Saudi Arabia, 48, 58, 65, 95

  Schengen Agreement, 121

  Scott, James, 115, 226, 247

  Scud missiles, 86

  Second World War, 75, 266

  Seehofer, Horst, 219

  Serbia, 123–4, 171–4, 179–80, 187, 238

  shabiha, 63, 66

  Shamsa (aunt), 85–6, 103, 118–20

  Sharm El-Sheikh, 48

  Shereen (aunt), 130, 145, 149, 161, 223

  Shia prayers, 194–5

  Shiar (brother), 13–14, 19–21, 24–5, 43

  his daughter, 33, 93

  and family’s leaving Syria, 108, 110, 115

  filming in Syria, 91–3, 95, 99

  flies to Athens, 163–5

  and Nujeen’s arrival in Germany, 219–21, 223, 236

  and Syrian revolution, 66, 69

  transfers money, 134

  SIA refugees, 169, 171

  SIM cards, 156

  Six Day War, 50

  Skala Sikamineas, 150

  Slovenia, 185, 187, 189–201, 204–5, 212

  Slumdog Millionaire, 109

  smoking, 27

  Sofia, 122–3

  Somalia, 12

  Soros, George, 243

  Sound of Music, The, 211

  Spielfeld, 205

  Sriaa (tortoise), 38–40

  Stalin, Josef, 59–60

  Streets of Freedom, 80

  suicide bombers, 237–8

  Sweeney, Alison, 115, 226–7

  Sykes, Mark, 15

  Syrian National Council, 106

  Tahrir Square, 46

  Talabani, Jalal, 55

  Taliban, 216

  Tehran, 16

  tennis, 41

  Thatcher, Margaret, 259

  Thessaloniki, 166–7

  Thutmose, Pharaoh, 241–2

  time dilation, 166

  Tishrin dam, 13

  Tomislav, King, 189

  tortoises, 38–40

  torture, 50

  Tower of London, 253

  Treaty of Sèvres, 15

  Tripoli, 57

  Tunisia, 48, 56

  Turkification policy, 17

  Turkomans, 58

  UAE, 117

  UN Convention on Refugees, 122

  UNHCR, 171, 177, 193, 262

  vendettas, 97

  Victoria, Queen, 11, 115–17

  Victoria and Albert Museum, 156

  Vienna, 124, 203

  von Trapp family, 211–12

  Walking, 19

  Wesseling, 231, 254

  Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, 40

  William, Prince, 96, 194

  wristbands, 206–7, 217–18

  Würzburg attack, 264

  Yaba (father), 13, 16, 18, 21, 38, 267

  and family’s return to Manbij, 77–8, 84

  and Nujeen’s arrival in Germany, 215, 246

  and Nujeen’s departure, 114

  and Nujeen’s disability, 24, 32

  returns to Aleppo for belongings, 86–7

  sadness for Syria, 257

  and Syrian revolution, 53–4, 58, 61, 63–5, 69

  and tortoise, 39–40

  Yarmouk, 199

  Yazidis, 117, 193, 198, 256

  Yemen, 48

  YPG, 57, 65, 68, 101, 118, 120, 257

  Zagreb, 188–9

  Zenobia, Queen, 116–17, 137

  Zorba the Greek, 13

  Zuckerberg, Mark, 115

  Zuhak and Kawa, 17, 36

  Žumberački put, 191

  Photos Section

  Me and my brother Bland – he has been with me for every important event of my life.

  At home in Manbij 2002 (aged three) in a special white dress Yaba (my father) bought me as a gift back from Mecca where he had gone on the Haj pilgrimage.

  On the terrace of our apartment in Aleppo – my only interaction with the outside world.

  At Newroz 2009 – our traditional Kurdish new year celebrations – which was the only time I ever went out. We were made by the regime to go to a rocky place outside the city.

  Yaba (my dad) and Ayee (my mum) in traditional Kurdish dress.

  Me and my mother on the edge of the Queiq river dam for a family picnic in 2009. The river flows through Aleppo and in 2013 was the scene of an awful massacre when 110 corpses appeared shot in the head.

  Here I am at a family barbecue on the bank of the Euphrates river celebrating Newroz 2011, just before revolution then war swept the country.

  After a series of operations in 2010.

  LOUAI BESHARA/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

  President Bashar al-Assad and his British-born wife Asma in 2003. When he took over in 2000 after the death of his father Hafez, we had great hopes but they soon faded.

  RAMZI HAIDAR/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

  Aleppo, with its ancient fortress in the background.

  GEORGE OURFALIAN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
r />   Much of the city has now been turned to rubble and hundreds of thousands of people have fled.

  JOHN CANTLIE / GETTY IMAGES

  Some of the biggest demonstrations against the regime in 2011 took place in Hama after Friday prayers in July and were brutally put down; the city had been the scene of a crackdown by Hafez al-Assad in 1987 which left around 10,000 people dead.

  HANDOUT / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

  Daesh militants moved into Syria in 2014 and set up their capital in Raqqa.

  IVOR PRICKETT / UNHCR

  Arriving on the beach in Lesbos after crossing in a dinghy from Turkey on 2 September 2015.

  ZELJKO LUKUNIC / PIXSELL / PIXSELL / PA IMAGES

  Being taken away by Croatian police in a prison van – we were terrified we would be fingerprinted and forced to apply for asylum there.

  Talking to BBC reporter Fergal Keane on our journey through Serbia – I told him I wanted to be an astronaut.

  The Serbian-Hungarian border – we got there just as Hungary closed the fence and stopped letting people cross, leaving us stranded and forced to find another route.

  In Germany at last, but waiting in a queue for five hours for a bus to a camp. Nasrine’s brithday, 21 September 2015.

  Tired, bored and wanting to see my brother! In a refugee camp in the German city of Rosenheim.

  Reunited! Nasrine and I with Bland in our new home in Wesseling.

  SILEV MOHAMMED

  Everything smashed and broken: my home in Aleppo, Christmas 2016.

  Lourenço Anunciação

  At Cologne Zoo, looking at the animals I knew about from the documentaries I used to watch all day and night in Aleppo.

  Playing wheelchair basketball in my new chair in Germany, June 2016.

  Exiled from their country; my brother Mustafa and my parents in Gaziantep, April 2016. I miss them terribly.

  About the Author

  CHRISTINA LAMB is one of the world’s leading foreign correspondents. Author of Farewell Kabul and coauthor of the New York Times bestseller I Am Malala, she has reported on Pakistan and Afghanistan since 1987. Educated at Oxford and Harvard, she is the author of five books and has won a number of awards, including Britain’s Foreign Correspondent of the Year five times, as well as the Prix Bayeux-Calvados, Europe’s most prestigious award for war correspondents. She works for the Sunday Times, and lives in London and Portugal with her husband and son.

  Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.

  Credits

  Cover layout design HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017

  Cover photograph © STR/AFP / Getty Images

  Copyright

  First U.S. hardcover edition was published in 2016 under the title Nujeen by HarperCollins Publishers.

  THE GIRL FROM ALEPPO. Copyright © 2016 by Christina Lamb and Nujeen Mustafa. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  FIRST HARPER WAVE PAPERBACK EDITION PUBLISHED 2017.

  All photographs from the Mustafa family collection unless otherwise credited

  ISBN 978-0-06-256774-1 (pbk.)

  EPub Edition October 2017 ISBN 978-0-06-282125-6

  About the Publisher

  Australia

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  United Kingdom

  HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

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  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  United States

  HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

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  www.harpercollins.com

 


 

  Nujeen Mustafa, The Girl from Aleppo

 


 

 
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