Baladi - Coverage
Hassan al-Kontar, 36, has been trapped in Malaysia's Kuala Lumpur airport since March 7. "I have lost count actually, because it is useless counting," he told BuzzFeed News.
Hassan has been live-tweeting his experiences, filming himself to tell the world why he is stuck in the airport.
"Like the rest of the normal people, I have some good days and bad days, Today is not one of my finest days" he tweeted.
"When I wake up I face two types of problems," he said, sharing a photo of where he sleeps. "I don’t have a normal person’s morning."
"Cleaning is tricky. To take a shower I use the special needs facility because people don’t go in there too much," he explained. "Now I have clean clothes, so it is better than the first month, but once I was [so] dirty and it annoyed me [so much] I could not sleep. My clothes stank."
Every day, he has a meal provided to him by Asia Airlines, as he's currently in its terminal.
Kontar said the airline has accepted some responsibility for him, so it will continue feeding him every day. BuzzFeed News has contacted Air Asia for comment.
"It’s the same thing every day, it is the same meal. Sometimes, every two or three days, I buy a hamburger, just to change the mood.
"Even a cup of coffee is a challenge, you know? I don’t have access to a restaurant here or coffee shops, so I simply have to ask the workers, who are cleaning the toilets or the floors, just to bring me a cup of coffee, which may take an hour or a few hours."
This is how far he can walk. He doesn't have a boarding pass, so he can't go beyond checkpoints in and out of the airport.
This is Kontar's view. He sits here every morning. "I [have] become less hopeful," he said. "I have no one."
Kontar tries to stay hopeful, but his options are limited. He needs to get a visa for another country, or a temporary residency visa for Malaysia. In the worst-case scenario he will be sent back to Syria, where he could face imprisonment as a result of him never doing military service.
"They will force me to join the military and fight...after investigating me for god knows how long."
Source: BuzzFeed News, Star TV