My story starts when I and my wife decided to send our three children to Egypt, to live and study there, to have a better life. When the revolution started to be very violent and dangerous, I and my wife decided to leave Nawa (Southern Syria) as well, running away to Lebanon.

During a visit in Egypt, we heard on the news that my mother in law got shot back in Syria, and my wife chose to go back to Syria to take care of her. Still, the situation for ill and injured people is really complicated, the government destroyed and shut public hospitals and now the only chance is to go to one of the ad-hoc clinics that might be opened in normal apartments or houses by normal people, but with poor medical knowledge. Sometimes people end up with amputated limbs because of the lack of medicine, instruments and knowledge.

I traveled from Alexandria to Italy by boat; the trip lasted for 8 days. I could survive the trip, but on the same ship there were also 80 children. Imagine how difficult it was for them, especially when there were 3 days with no water or food.

After we arrived in Italy, I went to Milan, then to Calais, where all the people that help Syrian people cross the channel to the UK are. I arrived in the UK on 27th of August. I am still waiting for my refugee status to be settled by the Home Office and afterwards, hopefully, I will be able to bring my family here. For now, when I call back home to talk to my wife, I can hear the airstrikes in the background.



A. A.