Red Cross reunites Syrian refugee family in Jordan

AMMAN — Marwa Hassan, a Syrian mother-of-two, made the difficult choice to send her children to Jordan last year after she was detained for three months by the Syrian regime, leading her to fear for their safety. 

“My husband passed away more than a year ago and I was forced to leave my home and head to Qunitrah. Later I was detained by the Syrian regime. To ensure the safety of my children, I decided to send them to Jordan,” she told The Jordan Times in a recent interview. 

Marwa’s children, Hussein and Lemar, left for Jordan in July 2014 under the care of her sister Nisreen. 

When Marwa was released in September 2014, she attempted to join her family in Jordan but failed several times, according to International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) spokesperson Hala Shamlawi. 

As Marwa was losing hope of ever seeing her children again, the ICRC managed to bring the family together as part of its efforts to reunite divided families.

“From July 2014 to April 2015, Nisreen was able to maintain contact with Marwa through the ICRC’s tracing office, which offers telephone calls to Syrian refugees in Azraq camp. The ICRC, meanwhile, was working around-the-clock trying to arrange a possible family reunification,” Shamlawi told The Jordan Times. 

The ICRC registered an intervention with the Jordanian authorities for Marwa’s entry to Jordan on family reunification grounds. 

“As Marwa reached Rweished in the northeastern border area, the ICRC handed her a family booklet, collected from her sister Nisreen in Azraq camp, so she would have all her documents ready and complete for the reunification,” the ICRC official added. 

Shamlawi said family reunification is one of the core activities of the ICRC worldwide. “Marwa was transferred from Rweished to the Ribaa Al Sarhan registration centre, and then to Azraq camp, where the reunion took place. At a later stage, she left the camp to reside in Abu Nseir in Amman,” she noted. 

Marwa recounted that when she was first reunited with her children, her son quickly ran to hug her, while her young daughter’s response was “cold”. 

“When my daughter went to Jordan, she was two years old, and now she is three... so she did not recognise me, whereas Hussein, who is now five years old, was happy to see me.”

The two sisters and their families are now supported by Nisreen’s 14-year-old son, who works at a nearby restaurant so that they can meet living expenses and the house rent of JD200 per month.

“My children are really attached to me now,” Marwa said. “Whenever I want to go to buy some groceries, they keep asking me: ‘Are you going to come back?’”