From Syria to Lac La Biche: Recently-arrived refugee tells her family's story

Two families are now calling the Lac La Biche community home after leaving war-torn Syria.

The families - one Christian, the other Muslim - have been sponsored by a local church, and the Eludin family along with Slieman Hammoud, respectively.

The families are now staying in temporary accommodations in Lac La Biche. The POST spoke exclusively to one of the families this week with the help of Hyat Eludin, who translated the interview for Khouloud Masre and her family.

The year was 2011. Across the Middle East, the Arab Spring is in full swing. Uprisings swept across the region, sparking massive protests against the governments in Egypt, Libya, Oman, Yemen, Morocco, and Syria. Some of those protests would eventually boil over into civil wars which rage on to this day with no end in sight.

At the time, Syria was home for Khouloud Masre, her husband Jamal Saboni, and her six children (now aged 3-15). It was there that her family began their three-and-a-half-year journey that would take them from a relatively comfortable life in Syria, to a shack with a dirt floor in Lebanon, to their new home in Lac La Biche.

The family - now only Masre and the children - are refugees.

Before the civil war that still consumes Syria, before the family fled their home, they lived in Aleppo, where they owned a store, a house, and a vehicle. They made a living, the kids went to school, things were relatively normal.

In 2011 though, the Arab Spring arrived in Syria. Protests began against dictator Bashar Al-Assad, and they didn’ t stop - they escalated. Tensions grew to a boiling point, and by 2012, rebel forces clashed with the Syrian army all across the country.

At this point, normalcy for the family was gone. They couldn’ t make a living from the store, so they began selling their possessions to buy food and supplies, and lived off of the money until it ran out. All the while, the conflict raged on.

Their house was scarred by explosions and gunfire. They were running out of money and food and time.

“There were bombings. Shrapnel was hitting and coming through the veranda - the kids were really scared. Everything in our neighborhood was rubble,” said Masre.

It was then that they decided to pack up and leave Syria to seek refuge in neighboring Lebanon. Though circumstances in Syria were horrific, the family still found it difficult to leave.

“Our hearts were still with our homeland, but we had no choice,” she said. “Everything was getting bombed, and we had no money left... The kids weren’ t sleeping at all because they were so scared.”

They arranged transport to Lebanon and left their lives in Syria behind in mid-2012. They settled in Kherbet Rouha - a town in Lebanon’ s Bekaa Valley.

The youngest child, Maram, was only two months old when they fled to Lebanon.

Though they had left the bombs behind, a spectre of sickness followed them across the border. Maram fell ill, and with no money to their name the family couldn’ t afford her medicine.

It was then that they met a Lebanese man, who helped as much as he could. He paid for Maram’ s prescription and purchased some food for her. He then gave the family his contact information, and told them to let him know if he could help in any way. Without a phone, the family showed up at the man’ s doorstep, where he offered them a place to live for the time being - a one-room security shack on his property.

It was better than nothing, but it was far from ideal.

With eight people, the one room -which was about the size of a single car garage - didn’ t offer much. There were no walls. The floor was dirt. There was no water or electricity. They set up a tiny makeshift kitchen and a bathroom. It would be their home for more than three years.

“It was bad,” said Masre. “We lived on the floor because we had no furniture. All eight of us slept on two foam mats. We had nothing to eat, because we had no money to buy anything.”

The oldest daughter, Rihif, got a job at a supermarket and earned about eight dollars a week - one dollar’ s worth of food for each family member. Masre eventually found work at a nearby clinic.

All the while though, sickness continued to hound the family. Masre’ s husband Jamal was having heart trouble. His arteries were clogged, and he needed open heart surgery. They couldn’ t afford the procedure. While Rihif and Masre worked, the other children, who couldn’ t go to school, looked after their father. Without the surgery though, Jamal’ s condition didn’ t improve. He eventually passed away.

In a cruel twist of fate, it would be his death that would set the family on the path towards Canada.

Jamal’ s passing meant that Khouloud was now a single mother of six, but her new situation - devastating though it was - would set in motion a series of events that would lead her and her family out of the shack in Lebanon and towards a new life in Canada.

Not all refugees are created equal. While Syrian refugees in Lebanon had to register with the United Nations and provide updates on a yearly basis, only the most vulnerable among them were eligible to be sent elsewhere.

“The most vulnerable were the ones they were taking out, because the country [Lebanon] couldn’ t help any more,” said Masre, through translator Hyat Eludin.

Three months after her husband died, she provided U.N. representatives with the update on her situation, and she was told she was being added to a list of refugees in hardship - the ones that were eligible to be sent out of refugee-saturated Lebanon.

Some time later, a U.N. representative came to the shack and told her that her name had come up - she was eligible to come to Canada, far away from Lebanon and her old home in Aleppo, an area which is still at the centre of the conflict in Syria.

When she first got the news, Masre didn’ t know what to think.

“I was really afraid - how am I going to leave with six kids by myself?” she pondered.

Apprehension set in. She had an opportunity to leave Lebanon, but she would be heading to a country that was completely unfamiliar to her and her kids, not knowing what was waiting for them halfway around the world, and she would be arriving as a single mother of six who couldn’ t speak English.

The U.N. representatives approached her three times.

“The first time, I told them, ‘No, I’ m not leaving with six kids by myself. I don’ t know this country... And I’ m scared to go by myself’ ,” she said.

Masre had a brother in Lebanon, another refugee who had fled Syria during the civil war. She thought maybe if he could come to Canada with her family it would make her more comfortable with the prospect. The second time someone from the U.N. came to ask her if she would accept the offer, she told them she would if her brother could come too. They checked the list - he wasn’ t on it, so she told them no a second time.

Masre wanted to know more about Canada, so she began to ask some of the people around her about her option for refuge, and began to hear good things.

“They told me Canada is a beautiful place. They told me my kids would get a good education and that it’ s a beautiful country,” she said.

The third time the U.N. approached her, Masre told them she would go.

Lac La Biche wasn’ t the first destination for the family. When they stepped off the plane last month, they were in Winnipeg.

For a while, the family was staying in a hotel, and while the accommodations were better than what they had come from, things were still a cramped with seven people in a room. The bigger problem for them though, was that they couldn’ t communicate with anybody - they didn’ t know English [and are still learning it], and they didn’ t know anyone around who spoke Arabic.

Luckily, an opportunity to come to Lac La Biche - a region with many Arabic speaking people - would present itself. Khouloud was speaking to someone she knew in Lebanon, who told her that he knew someone in Lac La Biche - Slieman Hammoud - who was hoping to sponsor a refugee family. The Eludins, who were also hoping to sponsor a family, knew Hammoud and they all collaborated to bring Masre and her family here. The new sponsors paid for the family’ s plane tickets, and on February 4, they arrived in Lac La Biche. Masre said coming to a place where they can speak with many people has made the transition easier for everyone.

“I was really relieved and happy that there were people here I could communicate with,” she said.

The family is currently living in a downtown housing unit provided free of charge by Lac La Biche county councilor Hajar Haymour and his wife Asma, but they’ re currently looking for a more permanent arrangement with the help of their sponsors.

Five of the children have already returned somewhere they haven’ t been in quite some time: School. Two of the kids are attending Vera M. Welsh Elementary, two more are at Aurora Middle School. The oldest, Rihif, is at J. A. Williams High School. They’ re all beginning to learn English now, and Masre said they’ re doing well so far.

“They’ ve been excited. I’ ve... seen them after school all talking about what happened during the day,” she said, adding that the schools are doing what they can to overcome the language barrier.

Masre has started school as well - she’ s attending Portage College twice a week to learn English.

Though she’ s only been here a little over a month, Masre has nothing but good things to say about her new home so far.

“They’ ve [residents here] have all been very nice to us,” she said. “I would encourage anybody that wanted to come to Canada. It’ s a beautiful place - the people are very helpful.”

For now, the family plans to keep learning English, get to know more people, and make themselves at home.

Over three years ago, when they called Aleppo home and made a living running a store, an oil and gas town halfway around the globe wasn’ t where the family was expecting to be - they had never head of Lac La Biche before. Now, after years of hardship, uncertainty, and great loss, Masre thinks she and her family have found a place to begin rebuilding their lives.

“I’ m very happy,” she said. “I’ m glad I came.”