I risked my life in the back of a lorry to reach UK from Afghanistan

When the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan, thousands of people fled the regime and sought refuge in neighbouring countries.

Sabir Zazai risked his life to get out. Aged 22, he boarded a lorry and travelled thousands of miles, ending up in the UK, where he claimed asylum.

Now he is the chief executive officer of Scottish Refugee Council. He tells Sky News his story.

I was 22 when I fled the Taliban in Afghanistan. It was the hardest decision of my life to leave my family behind and seek protection in the UK.

In the end, my parents made the decision for me. It was 20 years ago, and in Afghanistan, you have a different culture where you are with your parents for longer. They were worried about me, they said 'you need to get out of here'.

It was the most difficult decision in my life, saying goodbye to my family and not knowing if I would ever see them again, either because they would die or I would on the journey.

It was a choice between joining the Taliban or risking my life to get to safety. I don’t think anyone would want to join a regime that they do not agree with. It was not a situation where I could tell the Taliban I did not agree with them. The UK doesn’t have an asylum visa programme and I could not ask for a passport.

You have to get here and then seek asylum, but it is not straightforward, it is a very complex system that does not believe what you are saying. You have to prove you need protection.

I arrived here in the back of a lorry just like those 39 people, but I was lucky to arrive alive and safe. It was a terrifying experience.

I had somewhere in Europe in mind, but I did not know where I was - an interpreter told me where I was. You are not in control, you do not see what is happening because the car or van is boarded up.

Thirty-nine people dying on UK soil, a country I am now a citizen of, I feel like as a nation we should be in mourning.

These people are human beings, they will have friends and family, brothers and sisters, hope and aspirations to rebuild their lives in safety and dignity.

The kind of desperation of those people is similar to mine. Something must be really really wrong.

How are migrants getting to the UK and how many are attempting the journey?

Smugglers benefit from this. We need a system where people can seek protection, refugee protection is a human right, not a crime. They were not committing a crime, they were getting to a safe country. People exploited them.

If I had stayed in Afghanistan, I would not have made it to this country, but if my journey had been a bit longer, I might not be alive either.

These tragedies happen across Europe and we are not learning from them. This needs to be a watershed moment to get something happening.

If the UK had had a resettlement programme when I left I would have gone there but there was not, and I took the risk. Now, we must speed up these processes and extend them to people fleeing other conflicts.

We need to find safe and legal routes for people to come here. I see people on a daily basis risking their lives to get to safety. The UK is a proud welcoming nation, but what we do to get them to safety is not new.

It is important to our global image, we need to be able to offer people the safety and dignity they deserve.