A migrant’s journey: The story behind the face

Zaid Khalid Mahmood is pictured with other refugees on their way to the Macedonian-Greek border crossing last August. Courtesy Zaid Khalid Mahmood

In this week’s Global Talk podcast we talk to Zaid Khalid Mahmood, a 26-year-old from the Iraqi city of Mosul who was recently featured on the controversial “Hot Migrants” Instagram account.

The account posted photos of young, male refugees it deemed “handsome”, taken as they made their way from war-zones to western Europe.

But these photos revealed little about the people featured, what they had endured on their journeys to Europe and the lives they left behind.

Zaid, whose city was captured by ISIL in June, 2014 and is now living in a refugee camp in Belgium, shared his story with The National.