The story of 12-year-old Mansour from Afghanistan, who found himself in Copenhagen, thousands of miles from his family, prompted two brothers to set up a social networking site with a difference. Julie Ferry reports.

According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) over 37 million people were classed as refugees or internally displaced people in 2007. Aside from the challenges of day-to-day life they face, many also live apart from their family, not knowing whether their loved ones are alive or dead. Refugees like Mansour, who at the age of 12 fled Afghanistan and the Taliban with his family, only to find himself separated from them and alone in Copenhagen, Denmark, after an arduous six-week journey across Europe.

It was Mansour’s story that inspired brothers Christopher and David Mikkelsen to set up Refugees United, an organisation that aims to help refugees reconnect with their loved ones. By harnessing the global reach of the internet, the newly-launched NGO has created a website, www.refunite.org which encourages refugees to upload an anonymous profile, describing details such as body markings, initials or nicknames that only family would recognise, enabling those searching for each other to make contact.

Mansour’s story begins in Kabul in 2000 when he was poised to escape the Taliban and head to Peshawar, Pakistan, with his five siblings and parents. The family had paid a trafficker to assure their safe passage, but the day before the scheduled departure, they were told that there was only one vacant seat on the bus, which had to be taken by one of the family. As the eldest, Mansour volunteered and agreed to meet them at a later stage.

After a long journey across Europe, including spending two weeks hidden beneath floorboards with 10 other refugees somewhere in Russia, Mansour arrived in Copenhagen, alone and afraid. He was immediately picked up by the authorities and began the process of seeking asylum, all the time waiting for the imminent arrival of the rest of his family. They never came.

Five years later, David Mikkelsen met Mansour through his role as a teacher at a school for young refugees. Mansour told him his story and of his hope that one day he would find his family. David immediately offered to help. Several months’ research, with help from Christopher, ended up largely in dead-ends, so the brothers decided that Mansour should travel back to Peshawar to try and find some answers.

Back in Peshawar, Mansour recognised the trafficker who had sent him to Denmark and confronted him. With the help of bribes, he managed to discover that his younger brother Ali had been sold into slavery in Stavropol, Russia, not far from the Chechen border. He was given a phone number and, back in Denmark, the Mikkelsens and Mansour began calling the number. They soon discovered it was just a pay phone in the middle of a busy bazaar.

However, after two weeks of calls, an elderly man answered the phone and recognised the description of Ali, and gave Mansour another number. A woman picked up, said that she knew Ali, promptly passed the phone to him and more than five years of silence was broken. Their joy was short-lived however, as Mansour discovered that Ali was living as a stateless person, working 16-hour days, unable to escape. Through another bribe Ali’s ‘owner’ arranged for the brothers to meet in Moscow. Finally, on 7 October 2005 they were reunited.

“To try and describe the situation is nearly impossible,” says David, over three years later. “But there was palpable tension in the air, followed by relief and then ecstatic joy. The hairs on the back of our necks were standing up and tears flooded all of our eyes.” Mansour and Ali spent the next two days holed up in a hotel room catching up on the events of the past few years until, on the third day, Ali had to return to Stavropol.

“Mansour and Ali haven’t seen each other since Moscow but life has completely changed for both of them,” explains David. “Knowing there is family out there makes you feel better. Mansour called me the day after we returned and said that he had slept for eight hours in a row the night before – the first time he had done that for nine years.”

The story could have ended there but the seeds for Refugees United had been planted.

“We began discussing why no one had created a system, capable of transcending borders, barriers, conflicts and bureaucracy”, says Chris. “A personto-person network of hope, providing refugees and the NGOs assisting them with a multilingual, simple and streamlined family search engine, programmed to cater to the needs of people with low computer literacy but with a high degree of security and anonymity.”

The Mikkelsens had long flrted with the idea of social entrepreneurship, so when the idea for the website came along they say it was “too right” not to pursue it. They also knew that if they committed themselves they would have to see the project through. “You cannot do such a thing as Refugees United half-heartedly – that would be paying a huge disservice to the people we seek to aid.”

They managed to secure funding for the fledgling organisation, which was found through the Bitten and Mads Clausen Foundation, The Way Forward and the Kirsten and Peter Bangs Foundation. They keep the organisation’s core costs to an absolute minimum and outsource most of their needs to high-profile partners like FedEx and others, who provide logistical, IT and communications support.

“We don’t ask businesses for money, we ask them for what they do best. So, when we approached FedEx we asked them to help us send out material to all the refugee camps around the world, so they become part of the solution,” explains Chris.

One of the keys to the website’s success is spreading the word: He waDavid and Chris have spent many months forging links with NGOs and refugee groups like the Congolese in Sao Paulo and the Burmese Diaspora in Thailand, trying to raise awareness. Maintaining anonymity is a major factor for most refugees, another conundrum to solve.

“We advise everyone not to register with full details,” says David. “There is no need to provide information about your actual, physical whereabouts. There is no reason to give out a phone number. Except, of course, if you are like Mansour and have nothing to fear.”

And what about those who do sign up to refunite.org and ultimately receive bad news?

“We worry about the plight of all refugees and have to take into consideration that some may encounter a harsh truth. So, the question remains, is it better to live in blind faith that somewhere your family is alive, without searching for them, or to begin the quest to be reconnected with missing loved ones and possibly discover a sad reality? This is not a question we can answer for anyone,” says Chris.

As for Mansour, David maintains that everyday he is getting closer to finding the rest of his family. “As soon as just one of his family members hears about refunite.org he will find them. Of course, there is the horrible possibility that they may be dead, but if Mansour and Ali are alive, why shouldn’t they be?”

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