Life in transit: Airport survivors

On November 12, 2022, the most famous “long-lived airport”, Mehran Karimi Nasseri, died. Ironically, the man died at the same airport where he spent almost two decades of his life.

Many people in the world have spent months and even years in airports. Everyone’s circumstances are different; someone has lost their documents, someone has been unable to pay a fine, and someone has been caught between two worlds by political events that prevent them from returning to their homeland. Who are these people who have become long-lived airports?

8 Stories of airport terminal living

1. Mehran Karimi Nasseri

Mehran Nasseri is the most famous “prisoner” of the terminal. He lived at Paris Charles de Gaulle International Airport from 1988 to 2006, that is, for almost 18 years. It was the fate of this Iranian refugee that formed the basis of Steven Spielberg’s dramatic film The Terminal, in which Tom Hanks brilliantly played the role of a hostage in the transit zone.

Mehran doesn’t have much in common with the Hollywood film adaptation; Nasseri chose to be imprisoned in the terminal almost of his own free will. The air harbor became his destiny and an impossible springboard to a dream that never came true.

In real life, the prototype of Hanks was exiled from his homeland because he participated in protests against the Iranian government in 1977. Nasseri managed to get political asylum in Europe. From Belgium, where he had found shelter, the man decided to move to Britain, where his mother was a citizen. He lost his suitcase with documents at the train station on the way to the French airport, but still boarded the plane and flew to London. Nasseri could not pass through passport control at Heathrow and was sent back to the departure point, Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport.

According to the law, the Belgian authorities could issue restored documents only upon personal appearance, and upon leaving the country as a refugee, depriving him of political asylum. After seven years of Nasseri’s imprisonment in the terminal, Belgium allowed him to return with the condition of permanent residence in the country without the right to leave. And in 1999, France granted him refugee status.

But, having residence permits from two European countries at once, Mehran considered himself British and insisted that information about his Iranian origin be removed from his new documents. The man refused to leave the inhabited terminal. It is not known how much Mehran’s perseverance would have been enough if he had not been hospitalized in 2006. After treatment, the stubborn Iranian was given a place in a Paris refugee shelter.

The film company Dreamworks bought the right to use Nasseri’s life story at the airport for $250,000. All these years, the man lived modestly, striving to fulfill his dream of Britain. Imagine the amazement of the Paris airport when, this year, they saw Mehran Nasseri again in the hall of Terminal 2F. There, one step before fulfilling his lifelong dream, Nasseri died at the age of 77. The terminal staff believes that the older man’s heart could not stand the memories.

Nasseri’s dream would not have come true anyway. Britain never permitted him to come. The man just returned to the terminal a few weeks ago. Like the hero of a Jules Verne novel, Captain Hatteras, who “has been steadily heading north all his life.”

2. Zahra Kamalfar

A refugee family, a mother and her two minor children, had to live off handouts, sleep on the floor, and fear returning to their homeland in Iran. Zahra’s husband, Kalamfar, was executed, and the woman had to save the children by buying fake passports with her last funds.

She chose Canada as her new home, but on the way, she passed through Turkey, Russia, and Germany. The forgery was discovered by the German customs, who sent the illegals back to Russia, where they arrived in Germany. In Moscow, given the fraudulent way they entered the country, refugee status was also denied. The family was facing deportation… in desperation, the woman attempted suicide. Having entered the situation, Russia allowed the family to stay at the airport and seek a residence permit in Canada.

Zahra lived in Sheremetyevo with her children from 2006 to 2007. They washed and washed their clothes in the toilets, and ate what the airport staff and passengers shared with them. After 11 months of ordeal and numerous appeals to the Canadian embassy, the Canadian authorities granted them refugee status and paid for the flight. Since then, the Kamalfar family has been living in Vancouver.

3. Sanjay Shah

The desire to become a British citizen made Kenyan Sanjay Shah a hostage at Nairobi airport. In 2004, the man renounced Kenyan citizenship, received temporary permission to stay in the UK, left all his documents, except for the treasured English piece of paper, and left his homeland with the hope of never returning. However, when the temporary British passport expired, the Kenyan was deported home. Arriving in Nairobi, Sanjay Shah refused to leave the terminal building. Leaving the international terminal area was threatened with arrest and a heavy fine.

As a result, Shah spent 13 and a half months at the airport protesting and demanding political asylum in the UK. All this time, his family supported him — his wife and children brought him clean clothes and food, and he gave them the money earned by washing toilets at the airport.

The Kenyan’s story was publicized, and he finally got his way. Having received the coveted British passport in July 2005, the man took the first flight to foggy Albion. Visit. A F R I N I K . C O M . For the full article. Seven years later, he obtained a residence permit for his wife and children.

4. Denis Luiz de Souza

Unlike the hostages of the deadly situation of the Kalamfar family, Brazilian Denis Luiz de Souza became a guest at the Sao Paulo International Airport of his own free will. As a 15-year-old teenager, he quarreled with his stepmother and found refuge in Terminal 2 from a domineering woman, not intending to fly anywhere. That was 22 years ago.

But even now, Denis flatly refuses to leave the terminal area. He is 37 years old and his whole world is concentrated in the airport area. He has his blanket, pillow, hygiene items, clothes, and food. And the airport staff provides him with all this. An employee of a well-known fast food chain pours his favorite latte for free every morning.

Denis is described as harmless, but strange and mentally ill. The Brazilian newspaper El País wrote in 2019 that Luiz de Souza cannot read and count, has problems with memory and communication, has poor command of speech, and does not feel time. In fact, he doesn’t even realize that he has lived in the terminal for more than two decades. But life outside the airport does not exist for him, and there is no one there to take care of him.

5. Hiroshi Nohara

Mexico’s Benito Juarez airport also has its celebrity. This is Hiroshi Nohara, a Japanese man who spent 117 days in the food court of Terminal 1. His visit to Mexico is shrouded in mystery. The purpose of the visit is unknown; the man just flew in, but did not leave the terminal, although his documents were in order.

According to the laws in force in Mexico, no one had the right to expel him by force. Nohara became popular after it was shown on a local television channel. Without explaining anything, as unexpectedly as he arrived, Hiroshi left the food court on New Year’s Eve, December 31, 2009, with a woman.

As the journalists found out, he was sheltered by a resident of Mexico City. But, a few days later, the mysterious Japanese man returned to the terminal, hung with bags of clothes, food, and bedding. After staying at the airport for several more weeks, Hiroshi Nohara disappeared without a trace along with his belongings.

6. Tetsuya Abo

Another Japanese man did not want to return to his homeland and demanded political asylum in Russia seven years ago. Tetsuya Abo arrived in Moscow on May 1, 2015. After 28 days, he was supposed to fly back to Tokyo. On May 29, he appeared at Sheremetyevo airport. He asked for political asylum, saying that he, as a media representative, was being persecuted in Japan for critical statements about freedom of speech.

The man ignored his flight, settling into a cubicle next to the boarding gate. He lived there for 185 days, seeking the opportunity to stay in Russia. Abo’s citizenship had to be denied due to the lack of any reliable evidence of his persecution by the Japanese authorities. Since the Japanese side did not confirm Abo’s claims, he was put on a flight to Tokyo in November of the same year. Nothing is known about his further fate.

7. Edward Snowden

In the summer of 2013, Edward Snowden, a former employee of the CIA and the NSA of the United States, became a world-famous figure stuck at the airport, who provided Moscow with classified documents exposing the US intelligence services. Snowden spent several days in the rooms of the capsule hotel “Air Express” in Terminal E, and in total did not leave Sheremetyevo airport for more than a month, waiting for political asylum.

8. Issa Mohamed

Since 2018, Nigerian-born Issa Mohamed has been held hostage at the Ethiopian airport in Addis Ababa. Since 2010, he has been living illegally in Israel for eight years. He was caught and expelled from the country without the right to enter. But in Nigeria, Mohamed, who was deported, was also refused admission. Because his passport, identified by the Israelis as fake, was considered authentic by the Nigerians, Issa no longer had any other documents.

Therefore, only the terminal remained a life-free zone for Mohamed. And it is not yet clear how long he will be his forced guest. Airports are compared with cities for a reason. It has everything you need to live there – a roof over your head, shops, catering outlets, recreation areas, laundries, comfortable toilets and showers, even rooms for believers, and, of course, a portal to anywhere in the world.

Well, almost anyone, wherever there is an airport. You can live and survive here, you can find yourself and get lost, or you can become an integral part of it and gain fame like Mehran Karimi Nasseri. But who among us, being in sober health and without exceptional life circumstances, agrees to imprison himself in the narrow world of the terminal?