If you've ever had to take a plane somewhere, you probably know how it feels to have your flight delayed by several agonizing hours. But, imagine being stuck at the airport for a whopping 18 years!!
Well, one man didn't have to
imagine at all, because that's exactly what happened to him. Mehran
Karimi Nasseri also known as Sir Alf and Moran stayed in Terminal one
of Paris's Charles de Gaulle International Airport from August 1988
to July 2006.
Before his two decades stay at
the airport, Nasseri's life was nothing out of the ordinary. He was born in
Iran in 1943 to a middle-class family and he had a pretty typical
childhood.
When he was thirty, he went abroad to study at the University
of Bradford in the UK and three years later he went back home.
Nothing too special until you find out what led up to his extended stay
within the walls of the Parisian airport.
According to him, he'd been exiled from Iran and had his
citizenship revoked because of his political views. Whatever the case, the
man asked for political asylum from Iran for four years. He got
nothing but rejections from different European countries.
But, in 1981, the
UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Belgium granted Nasseri official
refugee status. He could now request citizenship in any European country
and after Nasseri had spent several years in Belgium he decided that he
moved to the UK.
His decision was connected with a
family secret. Basically, Nasseri was already an adult when his
mother told him that he wasn't her real son. It turned out that his birth
mother was a Scottish nurse who'd had an affair with his father. This made
Nasseri eligible for British citizenship.
So, that's why he decided
to get UK citizenship. Now that he had refugee status if only he'd
known what was in store for him, he set off for the United Kingdom in
1988.
First
Nasseri, travelled to Paris where he caught a plane to London
and that's where things started to get murky when he arrived at Heathrow
Airport. He didn't have his refugee papers with him. Nasseri claimed
that they'd been stolen on a train when he was on his way from Belgium
to Paris.
The craziest thing is nobody could figure out how on earth the man
had managed to get on a plane to London. It was an international flight and
you can't just fly to another country without a valid passport and visa.
Whether it was the airport or airline staff, somebody made a huge mistake.
He was in London unable to leave
the airport since
passport control wouldn't let him through
without his papers. They let him fly back to France without his documents
because that's exactly what he did and thus we've come full-circle upon his
arrival at Charles de Gaulle Airport.
Things really started getting weird since
Nasseri didn't have his refugee papers per se and passport control authorities
also wouldn't let him leave the airport. He even got arrested and spent
some time in the airport jail for attempting to enter the country
illegally. But, since his situation had no obvious solution, he was
released.
Usually when a person has lost
their papers, they get sent back to their home country since they don't need
a passport to enter. But, remember Nasseri was stateless so he couldn't
fly home. On the other hand, France wasn't his country of citizenship and
he didn't have a visa or anything.
So, he couldn't enter it without a
passport either. That's how this man got stuck at the airport and made it
his new home for the next 18 years. At first, Nasseri thought his
airport stay wouldn't last longer than a few days, maybe weeks at the
most. Then months went by, then years. And, the man was still living in
Terminal one.
How did he spend the next two
decades stranded in an airport? You might wonder. Well, he mostly stayed
on his personal red bench on the restaurant floor, reading books and newspapers
and writing down his experience in a diary. His luggage was always by
his side and the airport provided him with everything he needed.
Bathrooms, showers and even laundry services. He had his meals in the food
court and he was surrounded by stores. So, when he thinks about it, whatever
he could possibly need was literally a step or two away as for how he
had money to support himself.
For the first few years, he lived on his savings. But, once his
story spread around, concerned and generous people started sending
him some money. Towards the end of his stay, Nasseri published his
autobiography which also brought him some cash. Besides, he got $250,000
from G Works after they made a movie called the terminal which
had been inspired by his story.
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