Ibrahim came home to family after 3 years in a refugee camp
I thought about Ibrahim, the 11-year-old Syrian, and how alone he must have felt in that refugee camp in Germany. He may have read the good news about the free education his two siblings were getting here in the UAE, but his own long struggle to be reunited with his family couldn’t be ignored
When I was asked to write “my best news story” from 2018, my first few thoughts were the countless space-related stories I have covered — all the way from stories on UAE’s first astronaut to interviewing the pilot who flew Virgin Galactic’s spacecraft to space for the first time.
Space was a hot topic in the UAE this year and will pick up in coming years. Many of my space-related stories made it to the front page of Khaleej Times. But a different story made 2018 special for me as a reporter.
Since 2016, I had been chasing a story about an 11-year-old Syrian boy who was separated from his family. Ibrahim was sent to live in a refugee camp in Hamburg, Germany. For two years, I filed several stories that highlighted him and his family’s plight, all in the hope that maybe a kindhearted family or a government entity would help reunite Ibrahim Hassan Hamad with his loved ones in Ajman.
I was confident that a positive change was meant for the Hassan family and this belief stemmed from the kindness the people of the UAE had shown to Syrian residents in the country.
In 2016, Ibrahim’s two siblings, who live in Ajman, were offered free education until graduation by the Safa Community School and Safa British School in Dubai after I had highlighted their struggles in a news story.
And the help wasn’t limited to just the Hassan family, another Syrian family with four children have also been granted free education by the same two schools.
My inbox was flooded with touching emails from residents offering assistance to Syrian families who couldn’t afford an education for their children in the UAE. Some wanted to give books. Others were offering free home tuition to them.
Even though this was a life-changing event for the families, I couldn’t stop thinking about how Ibrahim must have felt, being alone in that refugee camp in Hamburg. He may have read the good news about his siblings’ free education, but his own lonely struggle couldn’t be ignored.
I visited Ibrahim’s family home in Ajman several times over the past two years. I’ve seen his brothers and sister grow in confidence and develop important skills, all thanks to the education they are receiving. I remember seeing them at Sharjah airport when they arrived in the country from Turkey (where they first arrived after fleeing Syria). They were quiet, afraid and lacking hope. Today, I have full conversations with them in English and they shine with a healthy self-confidence.
One wish, however, they continued to have for a long while was to see their brother again.
More than 200,000 Syrians reside in the UAE. Some moved here much before the conflict, many who fled the war. For the Hassan family, it was the latter.
The UAE had announced in 2016 that it will welcome 15,000 Syrian refugees into the country. This piece of news was published shortly after I had reported Ibrahim’s plight — it gave us hope.
But, it wasn’t until the generous amnesty scheme in 2018 was announced when that hope turned into reality. The scheme included giving a temporary one-year residence visa to Syrian refugees to help them get their lives back on track. Luckily, Ibrahim was one of the recipients and so were many others, whose stories I covered.
When I had called Ibrahim’s father to inform him about the amnesty, he was overjoyed, to say the least. A few weeks later, I received a WhatsApp message from him, where he had sent me an image of a legal document — a piece of paper that was going to change their lives for the better. Ibrahim’s UAE visa had arrived.
I immediately called him after seeing the message. “I bet your wife is shedding happy tears right now,” I had said to him.
“I’m going to go home and surprise her with the visa papers. I want to see her reaction,” he replied.
UAE amnesty changed the lives of other Syrian families as well. A young girl was reunited with her family in Ajman. Two elderly parents were able to stay with their daughter in Sharjah.
On September 18, I was able to write a story I was waiting to write for so long. ‘Boy who spent 3 years at German refugee camp reunites with family in UAE’ — the headline in Khaleej Times read. It is easily my best news story from 2018.
Ibrahim was offered free education from the Safa schools as well after he arrived.
When I visited their home after his arrival, the family members were all smiles, but most important of all — they were complete and all together. They were a family again, with another sibling on the way.
Loss, separation and pain described the Hassan family’s story best many months ago. Now, their story is a perfect example of resilience, strength and hope.