'Part of history' Syrian refugee behind viral Merkel selfie plans to help rebuild war-torn nation

When Angela Merkel stepped out of her car into the melee outside an asylum seekers' shelter in Spandau, Berlin in September 2015, Anas Modamani, a 19-year-old Syrian refugee, had no idea who she was when he approached her to take a selfie.

- Kate Connolly

"I assumed she was someone interested in seeing who we were, how we were doing," he says, referring to the hundreds with whom he had arrived in the German capital the previous day, after a long and arduous journey from his war-torn homeland.

"I said to her: 'Let's make a picture.'" He gently leaned in and took a selfie with the then chancellor.

"A second later people were crying out 'Mama Merkel'... only later did I find out who she was: the woman behind the historic decision to not close Germany's borders but instead let in refugees from Syria."

The image of the picture being taken, with Merkel smiling towards Modamani's phone, went around the world.

"I never could have imagined the power a single selfie could have," says Modamani, now 27.

After an image of the selfie moment was included in Merkel's recently published autobiography, Freedom, Modamani was inundated with messages from friends and acquaintances with screenshots of the page. He says it is a welcome acknowledgment, "meaning it's now going to be part of history for ever".

Since the fall of Syria's dictator, Bashar al-Assad, in December, Modamani, who has successfully built a new life for himself and now works as a video producer in Berlin, has been regularly called upon as one of the most prominent of Germany's 1 million Syrians, to sum up the emotions of his compatriots.