The most chilling man I met in Eastern Europe had trekked from Serbia into Croatia, laboring through thick mud with a woman and two adorable children. He had a nice smile, and I felt sorry for him. He seemed traumatized.
He told me his name was Karman, and that he’d fled Kobani, a Syrian town attacked by ISIS last fall. American airstrikes and brave Kurdish fighters eventually fought off the jihadis, but the battle left Kobani destroyed, Dresden-like. He told me his father had perished there, as had a friend, “shot in the head, pop, to the street — I saw it.” As he spoke, his child in the red coat bit a balloon handed out by volunteers, and it popped loudly. Everyone flinched. “Kobani is boom,” he told me, like the balloon.
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