From: Syria
Age: 22
Living in Denmark for 7 years
Wife, mother of 3 children, working as a cook
Fled Syria at age 25
Rahme’s story of finding refuge in Denmark is one of courage, determination, new beginnings and a mother’s love.
"My dream is for my family. I would like us to stay and live here in Denmark. I would like to continue to work here and have my children finish school and grow up here. Also, I think I would like to work in a restaurant, or start my own. I like making my own food to serve others."
A Nice Life
Rahme’s story begins in Syria, as a new wife and mother of two small children, a son and a daughter. Her family lived a very nice lifestyle, as her father, and also her father-in-law, owned large olive orchards and produced their own olive oil. Both Rahme’s and her husband’s family are Kurdish, and they lived in a town with many other Kurds called Afrin, in between the city of Aleppo and the Turkish border. As a woman, Rahme spent most of her time taking care of domestic duties in the home. She went to primary school but did not have a lot of academic education since she was not able to finish high school. After they got married, Rahme and her husband moved closer to Aleppo to be near the bigger city.
Escaping a Warzone
After the war in Syria intensified in 2012, she left her home by car and drove toward Turkey with her husband and two children; her son was 3 years old and her daughter was 2. She remembers her traumatic journey with many tears and great fear, “The bombs were coming in, and we were driving very quickly. When we reached Turkey there was a man who took everything, including my bag and passport. We had nothing other than the clothes we wore. Then we walked from Turkey to Greece. We walked all day, and it was very, very hard. My daughter was very sick with a fever. We had nothing to drink or eat; we had no water and no food. We finally came to the Turkish/Greek border and the Greek police took my daughter from my arms and threatened to shoot her. My husband was holding my son and they were pointing at him saying, ‘Go back. Go back or we will shoot your wife and daughter.’ So we went back.”
The family paid some smugglers to help them cross the border into Greece and make some papers for them. The smugglers put them on a train to Denmark, although at the time Rahme had no idea where they were going. When they arrived at the Copenhagen central station, they were told to take a bus to Sandholm, a Red Cross asylum center. The family lived at the center for two years and was granted refugee status 5 years ago, “Now my son is 10 years old and my daughter is 9. My son can still remember when we fled Syria. The first 2 years, he was always talking about our trip and what happened at the borders. The last 3 years he talks about it less. When we would take the train and someone would come to check our card, he would think it was the police coming. I took him to a doctor for his psychological trauma. Now we can talk a little about Aleppo and Syria.”
Family Reunification and Loss
After she was settled, Rahme was able to contact her mother, father, brother and sister, who were still in Syria with no electricity, water or phones, and encourage them to leave, “We told them they should also go to Turkey. Once they were in Turkey, we arranged papers for them to join us in Denmark through the refugee family reunification program.” In 2013 the laws were different and it was not as difficult to be approved for family reunification, but now it’s very difficult. At that time, a refugee was given a 5-year residency card that could be extended for 2 years at a time. Now a refugee can only have residency for one year and then must apply every year for their card to be renewed.
When Rahme’s family reflect on their life in Syria, there is a huge sense of loss, “We had many things in Syria. We had a big house, my father had an olive oil farm and produced olive oil. Now everything is gone. It’s very hard. Now my father is here and he is also still thinking about what he had. He had a house, a car, many things. Now, nothing is left. He started here from zero as well. Maybe for me that’s ok, I don’t think about it too much. I am young and still have a future and can build it up. But my father had so many things he spent 50 years of his life working hard to earn.”
Rahme does not have any family left in Syria now. Her uncle and 16-year-old nephew were killed, and another uncle had both legs amputated after a bomb went off in his shop. She says, “I hope that people will stop with the bombing and killing people. I cannot watch the television anymore. Everyday, there are bombings. There is nobody left. Everybody has fled to Germany and here. Now there are Turkish people living there who have moved in. Before Afrin was all Kurds, but now all the Kurds are gone, and the Arabs came. I have heard from people who have passed by my house in Afrin there are Arab people living there now.” Since the family has no paperwork remaining, there is no way to prove that the house belonged to them, “The worst thing I think we lost are the photos from our wedding and of our children. They are all gone, and we cannot get that back. Everything is gone.”
A New Danish Beginning
Thankfully, Rahme is very happy with her new life in Denmark and hopes that she will not be sent back to Syria, “I would like to stay here in Denmark. If I had to go back to Syria now I would have to start back from zero again. We have nothing left there. I would be afraid to go back. We have heard that the Danish government is saying many refuges can go back, now but I hope it is not true. We are very happy to be in Denmark. My husband and I both have jobs here, my children go to Danish school, we all speak Danish. We are all Danish.”
The integration process for Rahme was made easier by a teacher at the language school, “She helped me learn to speak Danish and learn how to do my shopping. Also, she helped me learn how to be in Denmark, how I should find my way to the daycare for the children. After that, when I was finished with Danish language class we did our praktik, and by that time my teacher had opened a kitchen in the language school. This was four years ago. So I could do my praktiks for one year here in the kitchen. Then two years ago the same teacher called to tell me I could come work in the kitchen as my first proper job and be paid. I was very happy with that. I really like making food and working in the kitchen.” Rahme makes the meals for the café in the language school and decides on the menu for the week, “I like making Danish meals because I learn more from that. My children are almost Danish with their food. They eat at school. I also make different meals at home, not just Syrian food. My children eat a lot of rye bread, liver pate, & salmon. I like to eat Arab meals best because I know best how to make them.”
Daily Life in Denmark
Rahme enjoys her daily life spending time with her family and working, “I work from 8-15.30. Then I go home and cook a meal, and we all eat together. Sometimes we walk to the beach, and then we come home and sleep. In the morning my children go to school, and then I come to work again. I’m busy. My husband also goes to work at from 6:30-15.30 sewing clothing at a laundry in Hellerup. The thing that I like most is to be with my family because my mother, father, brother and sister are here 50 minutes north by train. We like just being with each other.” Rahme and her husband had a third child who was born in Denmark, so she is a busy mom. She also likes helping older people and has a nice relationship with some of the people where her mom lives, which her mom appreciates. Rahme is grateful for her life in Denmark, “There are many kind people here in Denmark who have helped us a lot. They understand there is a war and why I came here.”
New Freedoms
There are many differences between the Syrian and Danish cultures, but one thing that Rahme is grateful for is the freedom women have here, “My husband helps me a lot here. In Syria there are many problems. Of course, women don’t work. Here, I am tired from the hard work, but I don’t have problems. There, women cannot wear normal clothing and cannot go shopping. Women should just be at home, and my life was like that.” Rahme’s family allowed her to go out in Syria, but other people would ask her what she was doing out on the road, so she just stayed in. On a spring night recently in Copenhagen, Rahme went out to the beach for an hour in the evening by herself, and her husband was comfortable with that. She would not have been able to go out alone in the evening in Syria, even before the war, “I’m happy here because there is nobody making decisions for me, as both a woman and a Kurd. No one else is deciding how I should live. There are many things that make me happy here. In Syria I cannot go to school because I am Kurdish. Only Muslim people are in school. There are many differences between the two people groups. Here everybody is the same regardless of your religion. Why does it matter what religion you are? It should not make a difference.”
Naturally, there are still things that Rahme misses about her home, “I miss Syria. If the situation was safe I would like to go visit in the summer so I could walk around and pick fruit. She also misses her house, the smell, “It’s a sweet smell. We would just go on a small walk and there were so many things from nature. You can pick oranges, pomegranate, lemons, & avocados, lettuce. In summer we pick strawberries and figs.”
Rahme’s Dreams
Rahme knows that while it is important to remember the past, she must also look ahead to the future, “My dream is for my family. I would like us to stay and live here in Denmark. I would like to continue to work here and have my children finish school and grow up here. Also, I think I would like to work in a restaurant, or start my own. I like making my own food to serve others.”
To read Rahme's story on the UNHCR Northern European website click here: https://www.unhcr.org/neu/33431-second-chances-rahmes-story.html
