‘I saw a bomb falling in slow motion towards my family’

Khadeja Alamary, 35 (pictured in the opening image), fled Syria in 2013. After four years in Jordan, she was granted refugee status in the UK in 2017 with her husband and their three children.

‘Nearly 10 years ago, I was looking out of our kitchen window in Syria, watching as my children and my husband picnicked underneath a tree, when a familiar noise made my heart stop. In the sky, I saw a bomb falling in slow motion, as if headed directly towards us. Without thinking, I ran to my children. As the bomb exploded 400 metres away, I pulled my small family inside our house and held them close to me.

After that, I knew we had to leave. Together with my sister’s family, we fled over the border to Jordan. There, we’d be safe. But life was desperately hard. For the first year, we rented one dank, dusty basement, scrimping to afford food. In Syria, I’d been studying to be a teacher and my husband was working as an engineer; but suddenly, we had barely any money and we weren’t legally allowed to work. Every night I lay awake worrying. It felt like all my hopes and dreams for the future had just vanished.

There are more than 650,000 Syrian refugees in Jordan, and when you arrive there you’re expected to register with the United Nations. So, when a member of staff called my mobile in early 2017, I assumed it was just a courtesy check. Instead, she asked me if we’d like to be resettled in the UK. Half of me wanted to say yes immediately, but it wasn’t that simple. My sister’s family were going to be granted visas for the United States. If we went to the UK, it meant we’d probably never be together again. I asked the woman if I could have some time to think about it, but she said no. So I agreed and spent the rest of the day panicking. It took eight months of interviews, paperwork and uncertainty before we were approved to enter through the UK’s Syrian Resettlement Programme, which meant that we’d already have refugee status when we arrived and wouldn’t have to apply for asylum. We were the lucky ones – that scheme only applies to displaced Syrians.

If we were from Iraq, for example, we’d still be stuck. When we learned that we were moving to a rural village in Devon, I spent hours on Google Earth, moving the cursor around and trying to memorise exactly how I’d walk to the local shop or take the children to their new school each morning.

I was worried people would be unfriendly, but some of our neighbours had signed up to Reset Communities And Refugees’ community sponsorship programme, so they helped us settle. Tiny acts of kindness could salvage an otherwise difficult day: a stranger smiling at me in the street, or someone going out of their way to buy halal meat for a barbecue we went to. My husband started training to be an electrician and I got a job with the Pickwell Foundation, which supports charities working with displaced people.

Back in Jordan, my sister was struggling even more than before. Her family had been packed and ready to move to the US, but President Trump had decided to block any refugees entering the country from Syria. I asked my colleagues to help her come here instead, but their community sponsorship project can’t just pick and choose which families can come. I’ll never know how they did it, but last year, my sister’s family was approved to move here, too. There’s a photo of us hugging and sobbing as we reunited in front of everyone in the middle of the arrivals hall: a tangle of tears and relief. Now she lives down the road from me with her family and we take turns to babysit, or we’ll meet to have a cup of coffee and hold each other’s hand.

Today, when I look out the kitchen window, I can see birds feeding on the breakfast I left out for them. I can see marks on the grass where my children have been cycling. And above them, I can see the clear blue sky.’

To find out more about Reset Communities and Refugees and the community sponsorship programme, visit resetuk.org.