Migrant speaks about attack that left him scarred for life
Hassan Mekki, a 32-year-old Sudanese migrant who suffered a racist attack in Athens this summer that involved a giant “X” being carved on his back, has spoken out about his ordeal for the first time.
Mekki fled to Greece after his village in Sudan was attacked and he saw his father murdered and his two sisters raped. On August 19, he was walking along Patission Street with a friend when a group of seven people on motorcycles, wearing black clothes and carrying Greek flags, attacked him. The 32-year-old suffered a severe beating that left him scarred for life.
“The police passed by but did not stop to help me,” he told the UNHCR’s website www.1againstracism.gr. “A friend called an ambulance but after three hours it had not arrived and we took a cab to Evangelismos Hospital.”
Mekki is receiving help from Doctors of the World and the Greek Council of Refugees but says he is at a loss about what to do next. “I don’t know where to go as I don’t have papers,” he said.
