Yana (The Stone House)

Yana was a young girl from Damascus, a city in Syria.

At the beginning of the 21st century, she lived there with her father, mother and older sister Amira. She liked to plant her dolls claiming that their hair was their roots.

After the war started, Baba left the country first in 2015.

When a rocket hit their house, Ummi with the girls were forced to start a long journey to London. They left Damascus in a smuggler's car hiding under blankets and bags. At the end of winter of 2016, they arrived at a refugee camp in Kahramanmaras on the Turkish side of the border. Against Ummi's advice, the girls insisted on continuing on their way to London.

Ummi paid for being taken to Greece. In July 2016, the plastic dinghy carrying 120 people including them across the Mediterranean Sea tipped. Yana was saved by Amira who embraced her and held onto a handle. But Ummi drowned leaving the girls on their own. In addition, Amira lost her phone to the sea and, with it, the ability to communicate with Baba.

Yana died of asphyxiation while crossing the English Channel being smuggled into England in a back of a lorry with a refrigerator unit. Her body was left on the side of the road by the smugglers. (PROSE: The Stone House)