by: Mr. Alsarraj, a Syrian refugee in Belgium
Dear Kawtare and Miles4Migrants,
Thank you for your help: we really don’t know how to thank you! You saved our lives. We have never expected to come to Belgium or anywhere in Europe. We were happy in our country. We were free and enjoying our lives with our friends, our family and our work. But everything has changed with this war. We’ve lost so many friends and neighbors that we were waiting our time to die. I know it’s incredible! But it is true. I didn’t want to see my family suffering so I was asking to God: “Please help us all together and protect us or take our souls all together but don’t let anyone of us suffer by the death of a part of the family.”
When my son arrived alive in Belgium and was recognized as a refugee, I took that as a sign from God: He wouldn’t let anything to hurt us and that what he did. At the beginning when my son starts talking about family reunification I was so scared by the procedure that I thought that it would be impossible for us to come in Belgium; we had to travel across the country which is the most dangerous thing I have done with all my kids and my wife.
Travelling across Syria is not that easy; we were arrested twice during our travel, every 100 km there were people from the army asking us the same questions and fetching for anything that could let them know that we were trying to escape from the war. We had to hide the passports and all our documents so they wouldn’t know that I had two sons who are almost 18. I they knew it, I’d have lost them forever as they would probably have been forced to join the army…
But we did all that things because we had faith. We have seen so many horrific pictures that we will never sleep in peace even if we are here in Belgium. Living in a land of war has destroyed all our dreams. I don’t know how we are going to stand after this but I still have my faith more than anything and I know that we will find a way to be liberated from our fears one day.
My family and I are thank you so much for what you have done: God bless you! You gave us second chance to live! Now we’re hoping to live in peace!
Mister Alsarraj (and his family)