#Moving People by Power of Art House

I fled Uganda in 2014 Because I am bisexual. This, like homosexuality, is forbidden in Uganda. The Ugandan parliament adopted anti-gay legislation in 2013. An openly gay or bisexual person now risks a life sentence in prison. Simply talking about homosexuality is punishable. I lived in fear every day, faced a lot of danger. I […]

I fled Somalia in 1991 Because of the Somali civil war. It was a dirty war between clans. I had never really paid attention to that – who belonged to which clan. We’re all Somali, and that’s it. I left when there was yet nothing to worry about. I was 19 years old and a […]

I fled Rwanda in 1994 Because mass murders started taking place in Rwanda in 1994. About 800 thousand Tutsis and moderate Hutus were murdered in just hundred days. My son Remy was 2 at the time, my daughter Eliza was 6. My wife, Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, happened to be visiting a Rwandan friend in The […]

I fled Eritrea in 2007 Because I no longer wanted to serve in the army. Military service is mandatory in Eritrea. I was picked up from home and taken to the army. You don’t have a choice. You’re told you don’t need to serve for more than ten years, but that’s not true. Once you’re […]

I fled Iran in 2010 Because problems arose when my mother converted from Islam to Christianity. For a while, my father also felt like he did not belong in Islam anymore. But he did not dare say that out loud, until my mother did. It turned out they felt the same way. My mother’s name […]

I fled Iraq in 2006 Because my husband was threatened with death. He was a Shi’a Muslim and worked for “the enemy” since 2004, an American company. But my husband refused to quit his job. It was wartime after all, finding another job would not have been easy. Suddenly, in March 2006, an attack was […]

Ik ontvluchtte Ethiopië in 2011 Omdat ik vreesde voor mijn leven. Mijn vader was onderdeel van een politieke beweging, het Oromo Liberation Front. Hij hielp anderen in hun strijd voor gelijke rechten. Maar dit stond onze regering niet toe, en ze namen hem mee. Waarnaartoe? We hadden geen idee! Pas na drie maanden vonden we […]

I fled Iraq in 2003 Because of the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. In Iraq I was a Ba’ath Party member. I was ambitious and wanted to go to university after high school. But there I was only admitted if I was a member of the largest political party. Membership was essential for a […]

I fled Syria in 2013 Because the Syrian civil war was becoming too dangerous for us. My husband and I lived in Damascus. He was a doctor, I worked as a teacher. We had a good life together and wanted to start a family. We saved up, had a nice house, some land, money and […]

I fled Iraq in 1988, I was 16 years old at the time You cannot fight chemical weapons Because we had to flee the poison gas attacks by Saddam Hussein’s army during the Iraq-Iran war My family were members of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and part of the peshmerga. In the 1980s, Saddam started […]

I fled  Sudan in 2013 Because  I worked as a chauffeur for the Dutch branch of Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders [ed.]) in Sudan. They provided aid in conflict areas such as in the Darfur and Blue Nile regions. The President of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, is responsible for many atrocities. He is wanted by […]

I fled  Syria in 2012 Because  I defected from the Syrian army, and it was starting to get really dangerous for me during the Syrian war. If I didn’t come back to Syria, they would take everything from him From 2001 to 2007, I studied in France for my Master and PhD, and worked as […]

I fled  Iraq as an artist in 1998. Because  I am from Kurdistan in northern Iraq. I lived through two intense wars there. Iraq and Iran were engaged in a fierce war for eight years, from 1980 to 1988. Then the Gulf War against Kuwait started. We lived under an embargo for 14 years. My […]