We are all migrants

“When we accidently crossed a national park in the southern Mauritania, I felt like a child. For the first time in my life I saw migrating birds in their winter habitat.

by Zsófia Tárkányi, student at DNS 2016

Seeing storks, swallows and other European migrating bird species in West Africa is just magical. When we learn in school that certain species migrate to Africa to have better conditions during the winter period, it seems unimaginable. These small creatures on their own tiny wings fly to the south of Mauritania and to Senegal to the abundance of food for the winter period.

When we accidently crossed a national park in the southern Mauritania, I felt like a child. For the first time in my life I saw migrating birds in their winter habitat. I knew all along about it, at the theoretical level, but to see these familiar animals in their second home, at the other side of the world was another kind of experience. It left an impact. It made me understand that we are all connected. That the world is one big place and we all part of it.

We, humans are no exceptions. Regardless of our temporary or permanent habitat, we are all the same. We are made from the same material and just like the migrating birds, we have the possibility to leave the hostile environment with a hope for the better future. Migration is a part of nature and a part of our world. We all have the right to do so.

Just like I moved to Denmark for my education, the storks moved to Senegal to eat. Syrians and Eritreans and many other suffering nationalities are also on the move, and have a right to do so. We are all migrating birds of the human species. It is time to treat it as a natural fact.

I wish our political leaders would realise that migration is a natural process that is part of human nature. No wall, no fence, no protective laws can ever change that fact.