Regional Competition

Five years ago Ebuka Prince Okeke (29) flew from Nigeria. He is gay. In Nigeria that means 14 years in prison if your neighbours discover it. It happened to Prince and he had to leave. In an escape scenario that looks like a fiction film, and after three years of hiding in several European countries, he finally settled down in Croatia. He asked for asylum, but got a negative reply from the police. With the help of a young lawyer who gives free legal aid, he lodged an appeal with the court and the struggle began. The prospect wasn’t promising: from 2004, during last 12 years, there were approximately 5000 applications by asylum seekers and by April 2016 less than 200 got the asylum. Nevertheless, Croatia has never been the top destination for refugees. Each year, the majority of asylum seekers, over 80% of them, leave Croatia before their application is resolved. Prince got depressed and his everyday life, as he describes it, turned into eat-sleep-eat-sleep. The only person who can motivate him is his football coach, as the game was always his dream...