In November 2015, a three-year-old white Turkish Van cat named Kunkush arrived on the shores of the Greek island of Lesbos tucked inside a travel basket aboard a crowded rubber dinghy. Alongside a mother and her five children, the cat had traveled all the way from Mosul, Iraq, and across Turkey as the family left almost everything behind in search of a safe place to live.

Overwhelmed by the long, frightening crossing over the water, Kunkush bolted onto the beach the moment the boat touched land and disappeared into the surroundings. Although his family and nearby volunteers searched the shoreline for several hours, the mother and her children were eventually forced to continue toward a refugee camp without him, leaving their companion behind on an unfamiliar island.

Days later, when fishermen and residents spotted him in the fishing village of Skala, his thick white fur was matted with sand and dirt, and aggressive local strays were bullying him away from food. Kind locals had to physically separate him from the other cats just so he could eat a meal by himself, before aid volunteers stepped in to take him to safety and wonder how they might ever trace a family moving across borders.

VIDEO: Watch Kunkush’s Four-Month Journey Across Europe to Rejoin the Family He Lost on the Beach

A New Name in Greece and a Seat by the Fire in Berlin

With no way of knowing the white cat’s real name, the volunteers on Lesbos began calling him Dias, after the modern Greek word for Zeus. American volunteers Ashley Anderson, Amy Shrodes, and Michelle Nhin brought him to a local veterinarian, where he was given a full health check, vaccinations, and a microchip.

Tracking down his owners, however, seemed nearly impossible at first. No one on the island had any contact information for the family beyond the single detail that they had arrived on a boat in November from Mosul.

Rather than leaving the gentle house cat in a cage on the island while they searched, the volunteers arranged for him to travel to a temporary home.

Shrodes paid €600 out of pocket to fly the cat to Berlin, Germany, where a foster mother agreed to care for him and promised to adopt him permanently if his family could not be located within a year. Safe indoors after weeks of scavenging in the dirt, the exhausted cat finally allowed himself to rest.

“If it wasn’t for people taking notice of his vulnerable state and taking him in under their wings, he’d likely be fighting for food and struggling to thrive. By offering him a place to stay and good food, he’s now able to sit by the fire and process what all he’s been through. He’s sleeping a lot and is very talkative when he’s awake,” Nhin wrote.

“When everything familiar has been swept away, even a quiet corner by a stranger’s fire can give a displaced soul the strength to wait for home.”

Five Thousand Strangers and a Neighbor in Norway

Even with the cat resting comfortably in Berlin, Anderson, Shrodes, and Nhin refused to let the search for his family fade. They distributed flyers, organized an online fundraising page to cover his travel and veterinary expenses, and launched a Facebook group called “Reunite Dias” in the hope that someone along the refugee trail might recognize him.

Nearly five thousand supporters soon joined the effort, sharing photographs of the white Turkish Van cat across Europe.

For weeks, the trail remained quiet, as the family had already moved on from their refugee shelter in Berlin without any way of being contacted.

Then, in February 2016, a message arrived on Facebook from Norway. A resident reached out to say that an Iraqi family had recently moved in next door and had just seen an article about the missing cat on the Daily Mail website.

Shortly afterward, the family sent the volunteers old photographs taken back in Iraq during happier times, showing the exact same white cat resting at home—and finally revealing that his real name was Kunkush.

Looking Behind the Computer Screen

Before organizing the final flight across Europe, the three volunteers arranged a video call over Skype to connect the foster home in Berlin with the family’s new residence in Norway. It had been nearly four months since Kunkush had jumped from the rubber boat on the Greek beach.

As soon as the call connected and the familiar voices of the mother and her children came through the computer speakers, Kunkush reacted immediately.

Leaving his spot in the room, he walked straight up to the laptop again and again, peering intently behind the screen in confusion as he tried to figure out where his family was hiding.

Seeing how clearly he remembered their voices erased any doubt about how much he had missed them. Using funds raised by online supporters, Shrodes purchased an air ticket to cover the final stretch of his journey north.

On February 12, 2016—after four months apart and a journey spanning more than 4,000 kilometers from Mosul to Lesbos, Berlin, and finally Norway—Kunkush was carried into his family’s new home. Far removed from the conflict they had fled and the crowded beach where they had been separated, the white cat settled back into the arms of the mother and five children who had carried him across the sea.

“Distance and borders can separate a family for a season, but they cannot erase the sound of a voice that has always meant safety.”