Write a commentThe journey from Syria which ultimately took me to Newry, no doubt many people would expect to be traumatic, and for most people it was, but as for me I was lucky enough and got it easier than others.
I didn’t experience the war as I had gotten out of the country in 2012 which was just before the war started, many fled the country in order to be safe but in my case I fled as my dad has been working in Northern Ireland since 2005, therefor we came here to be with him, to be a family.
There was war happening all over Syria but it still hadn’t reached Aleppo yet so we weren’t in much rush, but one day a shooting happened and we all decided to sit in the hall way as there was no windows there, so if a bullet was to ever go through no one would get hurt ... And we were right one bullet did go through the living room window although luckily no one was hurt by it. That was when we packed our bags in a rush and drove to the countryside of Aleppo where we had a house that we use to go to during the summer,
I was so emotionally attached to a doll that I made my mum go back to the city to get it for me and there she found our house bombed. I still have that doll right here beside me. We stayed there for a while and my dad got us to move to Turkey to get a visa in order to come and live here.
We stayed in Turkey for a few months until our visa arrived and for me and my brother who were 5 and 6 at the time it was fun for us, we went to the park all the time made new friends had fun, after all Turkey is a very beautiful country. But for my mum it was constant stress thinking “are things going to be okay?” - “How much longer do we have to wait?”
As well, us living in a hotel obviously wasn’t ideal but it was temporary and we never ended up getting a house. Our visa’s finally came and we went to the airport and flew to Belfast airport where we saw my dad waiting for us to take us home to Newry.
This was October 2012 and I went into P3 in November 2012 while my brother went into P2 also at the same date. Everyone was so friendly in our primary school (Windsor Hill Primary School) and we didn’t feel left out.
It took 3 planes to get there but I feel like I was luckier than others, as a lot of people died trying to escape the war and had to go through it and still are to this day. I think everyone including myself should be grateful for the conditions they are in.
Inas Abdulrazzaq - A Teenagers Perspective
