The long road to Canada: asylum-seekers talk of dangerous three-continent voyage
WINNIPEG — The perilous walk through frozen fields at the border between the United States and Manitoba was just the latest chapter of a three-continent, danger-filled journey for Mohammed and Mamood, two of the growing number of asylum-seekers who are hoping for a new life in Canada.
They say they had already walked through South American forests, crammed into over-filled boats, spent months in detention centres in the United States, and paid high fees to those who provided transport.
It was to escape what they say is the threat of death back in Ghana.
“We are not here to cause problem or something. No, we want to make here our home because we have lost our home. We have no place,” Mohammed said Tuesday as he sat in the small two-bedroom apartment that serves as a temporary shelter for him, Mamood and four other recent arrivals. One bedroom has two sets of bunk beds with barely enough room to walk in between.