Mehran Karimi Nasseri, a guy who lived in Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport for 18 years, passed away there.
Condolences to their family
Although it is believed that the Iranian-born Nasseri was born in 1945, what occurred to him in 1988 would come to define his life.
Nasseri arrived in France without the required residency documents, and because he was unable to leave the airport, he was compelled to live there.
He was removed from Iran without a passport and was unable to return, so he applied for refuge in Europe.
Despite being granted permission to seek shelter in Belgium, Nasseri claimed that his suitcase, which contained his official documentation, had been taken from a Paris railway station.
When the French police detained him, they were unable to send him anyplace because he had no legal documents, so he wound up in Charles de Gaulle Airport in August 1988.
He would remain a constant in Terminal 1 of the airport for the ensuing 18 years, spending the majority of that time in a state of legal ambiguity.
He reportedly declined to sign the refuge documents when they were ultimately approved in 1999 because he was anxious about leaving the airport and continued to reside there for a number of more years.
He made friends with the terminal workers, who gave him the nickname “Lord Alfred,” and became well-known to travelers as they passed through the airport. He would sleep on a red plastic bench there.
By his own decision, he later continued to reside in Charles de Gaulle Airport, calling it his home up until 2006, when he was admitted to the hospital and his sleeping quarters there were demolished.
After leaving the airport, Nasseri resided in a shelter in Paris, yet according to Charles de Gaulle workers, he had returned to living in the airport in the last few weeks before his passing.
On November 12, he suffered a heart attack in Terminal 2F of the airport and died without being revived.
Staff at the airport got concerned that Nasseri was struggling to adapt to life outdoors throughout his stay.
The 2004 film The Terminal, starring Tom Hanks as a guy who is compelled to live in an airport because he is unable to return to his own country, was loosely based on the life of Nasseri.
The movie’s fundamental basis was the concept of a guy imprisoned in political limbo and forced to live in an airport terminal, despite the fact that Hanks’ character was from a fictional Eastern European country and spent his time living in JFK airport in the US.
