“I want to go back to my homeland”
“Syria was safe – everything was available, like medication, education, food and water. We were living a wonderful life…but suddenly, everything changed.”
Hallouma Mousa Ibrahim has nine children. A bomb killed her father in Syria and, heartbroken, she fled to Lebanon with her children and disabled husband.
“I feel as though I am dead because I lost my father and brothers, and I know nothing about my remaining family – whether they are alive or dead – and they know nothing about me. I have no idea where my father’s body is.”
She hasn’t been able to contact her remaining family in Syria as the phonelines are all down. Hallouma’s husband is blind and suffers diabetes, so he cannot work. Hallouma used to work and her father helped to support her family – but life is tough now that he is gone and the family has been uprooted.
“One day I was at the hospital with my kids, and then I heard bombs near the hospital – so I ran away, losing all the medical documents I had for my children. Sometimes I work, but I can’t every day because I have eczema in my hands and no money to buy medicine. I can’t provide my family with food or my kids with education.”
Hallouma’s family now lives in Bekaa, where Islamic Relief provided them with blankets, mattresses and hygiene kits – “I needed those items, because when I came to Lebanon I didn’t bring anything with me.”
But Syria is still home for the Ibrahim family, and they miss it. “I only wish to return to Syria, to get back to work and to my homeland. I want to return to my family and find my father’s body, so that I can bury him.”
Hallouma is one of the fortunate Syrian mothers who has not lost any of her children, alhamdulillah – but at least 7,000 children have been killed over the last three years. That’s 270 school busloads, with a further five million children affected by the conflict in one way or another, including displacement, hunger and illness.
This Ramadan, when you donate to support the people of Syria, alhamdulillah we can double your donation with match-funding to the UK Government. While your original donation will reach the people of Syria, the extra funding you help us receive from the government will support a special project in conflict-stricken Sudan, helping over 113,000 people – including children and mothers – across 54 villages to improve their lives amid intermittent fighting.
It costs just £10 to provide life-saving medical treatment to an innocent ill or injured Syrian – and when that’s doubled to £20, we’re able to provide healthcare in Sudan too.
Donate to Islamic Relief before 3rd August, and change the lives of twice as many people affected by conflict in Syria and Sudan, inshaAllah.