From Algeria, Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan, citizens of distant, Muslim countries wait for US asylum at a shelter in the Mexican border city of Tijuana — more used to seeing migrants from Latin America than the Middle East.
At the Assabil Inn, Mexico’s first shelter catering for US-bound Muslim migrants, the backstories of the guests are as varied as the assortment of languages they speak.
“Almost everybody follows the same faith. So it feels like you’re among your brothers and sisters,” Maitham Alojaili, a 26-year-old who fled civil war-wrecked Sudan, told AFP before joining Friday prayers at the facility’s mosque.
“People get kidnapped. Anything could happen. Sometimes, when you leave home, there’s a very high chance that you don’t come back,” Alojaili said of the circumstances that compelled him to leave everything behind in search of a better life far away.
Data released this week by Mexico’s National Migration Institute …