A second chance as a refugee child becomes a man
Devi Choudri has spent most of his young life growing up in a refugee camp. He learned to play soccer in a small dirt alcove next to stacks of food rations. He spent the first jittery day of school cramped in a small hut fashioned out of a plastic tarp and bamboo. Now 23 and a new resident of Norway, Devi shares his story of incredible courage and enduring hope.
Devi is from the small nation of Bhutan, a magnificent landscape of snow-capped mountains and emerald forests tucked away from the outside world. |
INTRODUCING USCRI'S REFUGEE VOICES PODCAST:
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In 1991, when Devi was just six years old, soldiers set fire to his house. He heard his baby sister screaming and ran into the burning hut to save her. His whole family suffered third degree burns.
The Choudris were one of many families targeted by the reigning Drukpa ethnic group to expel people of Nepali ancestry. They were treated like criminals. Devi’s father was thrown in prison, where he died. With their own lives in danger, the family fled to Nepal to find refuge.
Devi and his family ended up at one of the seven overcrowded refugee camps where more than 100,000 Bhutanese refugees live for decades on end. There was no medication to treat his burns, and as they began to fill with puss, the growing infection made death a very real possibility for Devi.
It was then that Devi met Hiram Ruiz, a researcher at the U.S. Committee for Refugees. Though Hiram had visited many refugee camps before, he was struck at Devi's dire situation. He returned to the camp with ointment and proper bandages. Devi says it saved his life.
“I thought I may die if I didn’t see Hiram again,” he said. “But then I saw him come back with medicine -- it was the happiest moment of my life.”
The family lived in a small hut of grass and bamboo. At 20 feet long and 12 ft wide, the tiny structure could barely hold the family of five. Every night, Devi slept side by side with his mother, brothers and sisters on the ground. They lived like this for 16 years.
As the days dragged on, Devi escaped the monotony of camp life through school, which he had to work at the local plantation to pay for. He wanted to be an engineer, yet he did not have the money to pursue a higher education.
A bittersweet reunion
Hiram returned to the camp 11 years later to reunite with Devi and his sister, who were then 18 and 13. “I was pleased to see two very bright and articulate young adults, but sorry to see how, still stuck in a refugee camp, they had such few prospects for the future,” said Hiram. So he helped Devi pay for school.
Hiram had become the closest thing to a father for Devi. “I hope to see Hiram again,” he says. “I think of him and how he helped me all the time.”
One day Devi heard on the radio that the United Nations planned to resettle Bhutanese refugees to another country. “I thought I would never leave the camp,” said Devi. “It is a very sorrowful life.”
After 17 years as a refugee in the camp, the Choudris were finally able to resettle to a small town in Norway. The small Bhutanese community there serves as a lifeline for the family as they adjust to life in this foreign -- and very cold -- place. Today, Devi dreams of being a social worker. “I want to help other people who struggled like me.”
 With as much hardship as Devi has experienced, he is one of the lucky few who managed to leave the refugee camp, even though he endured refugee life for 17 years.
No human being should be trapped indefinitely in a refugee camp, with no permanent home, often unable to work to support their family or send their children to school. So many refugees escape war and persecution only to be held like innocent prisoners with indefinite sentences in inadequate refugee camps.
You can help change this today. Take the Stand with a Refugee Pledge to show that you support all refugees’ basic human rights and want all refugees to have a real home, a chance to work, send their children to school and have hope for the future.
Sign the Pledge now. Don’t let another hopeless day pass for a refugee, without doing what you can to help.
INTRODUCING USCRI'S REFUGEE VOICES PODCAST:
Click on Play below to listen to Devi's story
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