He spent 18 years living inside an airport after a simple paperwork error. 😮✈️
He spent 18 years living inside an airport after a simple paperwork error. 😮✈️
In 1988, an Iranian refugee named Mehran Karimi Nasseri arrived at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport and never truly left. A paperwork issue during travel erased his legal identity. France would not let him enter, and the UK refused him entry too. That mistake turned an airport terminal into his entire world for nearly two decades.
With nowhere else to go, Mehran adapted to life inside Terminal 1. He slept on a red plastic bench, washed in public bathrooms, and survived on food coupons from kind airport workers. Travelers came and went while his life stayed frozen. Days blurred into years, making the airport feel less temporary and more permanent.
Years later, lawyers finally fixed his legal status and offered him freedom. Shockingly, Mehran refused to leave. The outside world felt unfamiliar and frightening after so long inside the terminal. He eventually left due to illness, but in 2022 he returned. He passed away there, in the place that had become his only home.

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