Delagha is a shy, skinny eight-year-old with weary eyes, a child who seems older than his years, aged by experiences that most adults never face. When I met him at the Adasevci refugee center near Serbia’s border with Croatia, he was walking around aimlessly, killing time.
At an age when many children aren’t allowed to cross the street without an adult, Delagha had left his home, his parents, and his four younger siblings in Afghanistan’s war-ravaged Nangarhar Province more than a year ago. With a 10-year-old cousin and 15-year-old uncle, and aided by smugglers, he had crossed continents on a nearly 4,000-mile odyssey from his Taliban-and ISIS-infested hometown of Jalalabad, through Pakistan, Iran, and Turkey and into Bulgaria and Serbia. His dreamed-of final destination: the European Union, specifically, France.
Delagha…