Khaled fled Aleppo, Syria, with his wife and four you children — two of whom he carried in a backpack. Their harrowing trek, through the woods, nearly drowning in the ocean in a rubber boat, and over mountains to the border of Serbia, captivated the audience attending a hearing before the Helsinki Commission Tuesday.
Khaled’s story punctuated an appeal from a European Union official at the hearing for the U.S. to make more room for refugees caught up in the flood of migrants that’s overwhelming Europe.
“This is a global crisis. There are some 60 million people displaced globally — 11 million Syrians specifically,” European Union Ambassador to the U.S. David O’Sullivan told the committee. “It’s absolutely clear that Europe cannot offer asylum to all of those people.”