Child refugee tracks down aid worker who bought her a bike

The pair were reunited 24 years later.

A former child refugee had a heartfelt reunion with a man who bought her a bike when she was five years old, all thanks to a viral Twitter hunt.

Mevan Babakar, 29, lived in a refugee camp with her parents near Zwolle in the Netherlands after they fled Iraq during the first Gulf war in the 1990s.

Growing up, she always remembered one camp worker who ‘out of the kindness of his own heart’ had bought her a bike, making her ‘five-year-old heart explode with joy’.

On Monday, she took matters into her own hands, posting a picture of the two of them together and appealing to the internet for help in identifying the man.

Mevan, who now lives in London, wrote: ‘Hi internet, this is a longshot BUT I was a refugee for 5 yrs in the 90s and this man, who worked at a refugee camp near Zwolle in the Netherlands, out of the kindness of his own heart bought me a bike.

‘My five year old heart exploded with joy. I just want to know his name. Help?’

Her tweet was shared more than 7,000 times in 24 hours, with people online tagging anyone and everyone they knew in the Netherlands.

The phenomenal popularity of the post, which is currently on 22,000 likes, led Mevan to track down the kindhearted worker, who was identified as a man named Egbert who lives in Germany.

Within 36 hours, not only had Egbert been located, but the pair had been reunited in person, 24 years after they met at the camp.

Posting a photo of the two of them together, Mevan wrote: ‘This is Egbert. He’s been helping refugees since the 90s. He was so happy to see me.

‘He was proud that I’d become a strong and brave woman. He said that was his wish for me when I was small. He grows orchids. He has a beautiful family. He said it felt like I’d never left.

‘He thought the bike was too small a gesture to make such a big fuss about but he’s really glad that it was the key to bringing us together again.

‘He says he doesn’t smile in photos so we took a serious one together instead.’

She continued: ‘Small actions can have big consequences. The kindness that Egbert and his family showed me will stay with me for a lifetime, and it continues to shape me as a person.

‘That’s the magical thing about kindness, it doesn’t cost anything and it changes the world one person at a time.’

Mevan, who is taking a sabbatical from her job at a fact-checking organization in London to retrace her refugee journey, said her internet search had also brought forward another compassionate worker from the camp named Sandra.

She said: ‘Sandra, she was incredible too, she helped me use a computer for the first time! I now work in tech!’

After her story went viral, dozens of people from all over the world messaged her with stories about people’s acts of kindness towards them when they were refugees.

Mevan said: ‘Never in my wildest dreams did I think this story would resonate so strongly across the world. I’m completely honoured and humbled by the response.

‘How we treat each other is everything, big actions or small. At the end of the day, it’s the measure of us all.’