‘I was alone, I had nothing’: from child refugee to student nurse in Athens

Ahtisham Khan arrived in Greece, aged 16, after fleeing Pakistan. A new initiative is helping children like him find a safe home where they can start to rebuild their lives

At some point in his journey to a freer place, Ahtisham Khan came to a fork in the road. Fifty days of travel from his native Pakistan to the plains of northern Greece had been unexpectedly frightening and exhausting.

We had a lot of dreams," he says, recalling why he and his brother, Zeeshan, left their village close to the city of Haripur in Pakistan. We were teenagers ... we didn't know what we were embarking on. We did what we had to do to survive."