A sense of belonging

People reveal what they brought to Britain SYRIA

ABDUL RAHMAN BDIWI, 25 –

The moment the man from the United Nations gave me the pencil in Istanbul, I promised myself I would go to university.

I had escaped from Syria and we were at a workshop to learn about the UK before coming here as a refugee. I have since completed so many courses the pencil has become small like an IKEA pencil. We were forced to leave Syria in 2014. My father and I were walking to the mosque... just as the mosque was bombed. I found him in hospital. Everything was a blur. He was on a stretcher, screaming he couldn’t feel his legs. I slept on the floor next to my father’s bed for 20 days, surrounded by blood and dead bodies. I was 17.

Bombs were going off and I kept moving my father’s bed to different rooms. After I took him home, the hospital was bombed and the doctors and nurses who had cared for him were killed. An ambulance took him to Turkey and we lived here for three years. We never wanted to leave Syria, even when bombs were going off around the house.

The war started when I was 14. My memories are full of war, violence, killing, children carrying weapons. I miss my sisters, my friends, my home. It is hard when people say: “You’re just here for the benefits.” We arrived in December 2017. Everything was strange. I’m now a community volunteer and hope to go to university.

I miss my home. It is hard when people say, ‘You’re just here for the benefits’