by David Aronowitsch, Ahmed Abdullahi, Sharmarke Binyusuf, Anna Persson
Ahmed has no documents but is given the lead role in a Stockholm-based short film. He plays a refugee caught up in the asylum system. The part could not have been better cast, because Ahmed knows from experience the ins and outs of Europe’s migration offices. Fleeing the hunger and violence of Somalia several years ago, his perilous escape route took him through Sudan and Libya to the south Italian coast where he was registered as a refugee and his details entered into Europe’s Eurodac databank. He then became a classic Dublin-case. Ahmed has since lived sans papiers in Sweden where he is now battling for a residence permit that, according to European asylum regulations, he will never be able to receive.