Radio 4 - Asylum seeker interview

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https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002hky4

I thought this was an amazing insight.

A Somalian man who wasn’t happy about his only option being to join a terror organisation. Came to Europe via Turkey (who wouldn’t accept him) Worked in Greece for 2 years ( denied asylum), then worked Austria ( denied asylum twice), then France then came to the Uk as we are out of EU. Now in a hotel although he is now multi lingual in English and German and happy to work as he was doing.

Yet he agreed the UK is too small to accept people like him that just want a better life. And forwarded that some of the refugees behave like twats which he clearly wasn’t.

Maybe a middle ground country with a bit of financial support would work? Like the Italians or Jews who went to the US made a successful life or Poms in Australia?

What was his jobs before?

In Somalia? No idea but the expectation was he would become a fighter with what ever side.
In Greece he did farm work. Austria was hospitality I think? Not sure. He literally just wanted to not live somewhere he’d have to fight. Which is valid given the amount of people leaving the uk just not to pay tax.

He totally got the UK wasn’t ideal. He just had no other options really. Rwanda or something might have been fine?

All of the EU countries and the Uk have the same criteria and laws generally to make decisions is a person is a refugee after they make their asylum interview. So if he has been refused adult so many times he has 0 change of obtaining it in the Uk.
Did he provide documentary proof he was Somali? Often those who claim they are Somali are actually from Kenya.

I heard this interview - he was asked what jobs he had done before, what skills he was bringing, he didn’t answer it -

why has he been denied asylum so many times previously ??

Wouldn’t it be better for him to seek asylum closer to home? I mean, I can completely see why anyone would want to leave Somalia, but surely remaining in the region is more ideal.

If he was trying to avoid being recruited by a terror organisation and he's Somali then it would have been Al-Shabaab he was trying to avoid. Like ISIS but without the charm and convivial wit. I'd leave a country to avoid them too.

My best guess as to why he's been denied asylum previously is that country guidance available in Europe and the UK says that it's possible to avoid being recruited by Al-Shabaab if you relocate to Mogadishu. So his fear could be well founded and his claim wholly believable, but he would still fail on the basis that he can "internally relocate." I think that this cohort are the most difficult to persuade to return - people who fled with a very genuine fear find it hard to believe they will be safe in another city in their own country, particularly when the proposed city of relocation is known to be infiltrated regularly by the group they fear.