Shadows Across The Line

In Shadows Across the Line: Voices of the Displaced, author Senol Tasdelen examines the causes, the history, and the consequences of migration patterns around the globe and relates the personal stories of some of those who risked everything in a desperate attempt to reach safe haven. Some of them succeeded. Some did not.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reports that as of July, 2025, there were 123.2 million forcibly displaced people around the globe, including more than 49 million children.

Among those you'll learn about in Shadows Across the Line are sixteen-year-old Samir and his ten-year-old sister Lina, who made their way alone through no less than ten countries to escape the war in Syria before reaching safety in the UK. You'll meet Iancu, who, with his friend Codrin, sought freedom from the repressive regime of Romania's Nicolae Ceaușescu by hiding among 14,000 sheep aboard a ship bound for Canada, where they have now lived for many years. And Lucia, who fled with her children from the violence in her native Mexico and struggled to make a new life in the U.S., only to be arrested by President Trump's ICE agents and sent back to Mexico while waiting for her application for asylum to be approved. And you will read the heart-wrenching story of Hava and her two-year-old daughter Eslem who both drowned in the Mediterranean while trying to reach the Greek island of Lesbos in a small, overloaded boat.