Once you've managed to make it past TSA by removing your nipple rings and having your applesauce confiscated, living at an airport sounds almost kind of fun. There's plenty of booze flowing all the time, lots of junk food that you have a great excuse to eat, and plenty of reading material on the newsstands. But, as with many things, the reality is so much more horrible than the fantasy.
A Syrian refugee who's caught in a legal limbo has been held at an airport in Turkey for over a year now, and much as if he was being forced to watch over and over that Tom Hanks romantic comedy The Terminal, about a man stuck living in an airport, living in an actual airport is slowly driving him mad, according to Mashable.
Fadi Mansour ended up in Turkey after he decided that he wanted to flee to Europe, but was hoping to avoid the dangerous voyage to Greece by sea that has already killed so many refugees. On the advice of a friend, his plan was to fly from Turkey to Malaysia and then try to get on a flight to Europe. When Mansour got to Malaysia they accused him of carrying a false passport and sent him back to Turkey. Turkish authorities, though, wouldn't let him back into the country and have since been holding him at the airport for reasons that even Mansour doesn't quite understand.
At the airport, Mansour sleeps on chairs, reads and eats nothing but fast food for every meal. He's detained mostly in one room, where he's allowed out to walk around for maybe an hour a day. He also uses his phone to post updates on Twitter, like this one where he showed off his meal for the past year.
“I wish I had drowned in the sea. It would have been better than this,” he said in an interview. “I don't know what to do anymore. I read more than 40 books. I tried to learn languages. I play on my phone. A month ago, I mentally couldn't handle it any longer. I became almost aggressive, feeling like I want to hit the walls. I started smoking two and a half packs a day. I've never smoked before.”
It does not sound fun.
Things got so bad that Mansour asked to be returned to Lebanon, the country he'd originally fled to from Syria and the place where he'd been kidnapped by a gang. Lebanon sent him straight back to Turkey and his airport nightmare.
The United Nations Refugee Agency has hired a lawyer for Mansour, but they're still waiting to hear back from the Turkish courts. You can follow him on Twitter here.
