Onderkomen

Ghullam, Khaibar and Noori were minors when they fled from Afghanistan to the Netherlands without their parents. By now, they have been waiting for years for a ruling on their residence permits and are living in Maastricht in a derelict flat scheduled for demolition. Three Maastricht senior citizens care deeply about the fate of those boys and offer them help in the form of advice, distraction and daily groceries.

As unaccompanied minor aliens, Ghullam, Khaibar and Noori were originally assigned a special residential status. But their AMA permits have expired by now, and the Afghan boys have bleak prospects on receiving a residence permit for the Netherlands. Meanwhile, they have been living for years in a flat which is scheduled for demolition, and are not allowed to work or get an education. So they spend their time waiting, playing sports and rapping.

The volunteers from VLOT – a Salvation Army work unit which offers help to asylum seekers who are close to exhausting their possibilities or are already out of options – care about the fate of the boys. They help them with their applications at the Dutch Immigration and Naturalisation Service (IND) and make sure their daily staples are provided. Heart-warming documentary by Dutch filmmaker Jacqueline van Vugt, in which she shows the histories of the three boys in beautiful animations.