“Yusef is the father of my children. We are together 35 years.

Either we live together, either we die together”.

We sit in a small coffee shop at Langada village. Just a few kilometers away from the Kavalari refugee camp. Today is extremely cold. Spring seems very far. However, Hansa feels the spring coming. She is 63 years old and comes from Syria. In Greece she came with her husband, Yusef Salah, 65 years old. They have been married for the last 35 years; a lifetime.

They sit next to each other. Hansa does not wear a scarf. She smokes a lot but wants to quit smoking. She is a beautiful woman. She coincidentally met her husband in a friend’s house. “At the beginning we didn’t love each other. We met there. We stayed together for 28 days and then we got married. Love came afterwards” she tells us. Yusef doesn’t smoke. He sits in his chair, enjoying his tea. He speaks some English, but he gives the floor to his wife. Sometimes he intervenes and speaks only to support her.

At the early years of their marriage they lived in Kesab. Then they moved to Aleppo. She was a good mother and a good wife. Her husband was working as a bus driver. She was 26 years-old when she gave birth to their first child. They now have 4 children, 2 boys and 2 girls. She lost 2 children at birth. The years were going by and the family enjoyed a happy life. “We were feeling safe and we had money to live. I was very happy”, she says. “My husband has never hit our children. He only used effective ways to discipline them. Every day he was going to work at 5 in the morning and was returning at 4 in the afternoon as to go to his second job. He was doing all these things just for us. I have taught our children to love and respect their father. When I say something negative about him, they tell me not to speak badly about him”, says Hansa.

The couple love each other. The difficulties have brought them closer. “Yusef is the father of my children. We are together for 35 years. Either we die together either we live together”, she says.

The family was separated during the war. Their sons and one of their daughters fled to Sweden. Hansa and Yousef left later. They came to Greece and were placed at the Kavalari refugee camp. “When my children left from Syria, I felt that someone pulled the rug from under my feet. I urged them to leave. If they had stayed, the state would have recruited them. When the conflict started we sold our houses and left. My second daughter stayed with her family in Syria because they did not have enough money to come with us”, says Hansa.

The couple’s dream is to reunite with its children. “We’re tired of this long journey. If our children were not in Sweden, we would like to go back to Syria”, says Hansa. The couple didn’t have the right to family reunification but SolidarityNow helped them by preparing a file supporting their vulnerability and the importance of being close to their children. With our contribution and Danish Refugee Council’s legal assistance the couple is permitted to join their children in Sweden. “Your team gave us a second breath of life. You helped us”, she says.

Days go by and Hansa and her husband talk to their children and their grandchildren on the phone. They have a 3 years-old grandson who they have never met and a 7 years-old granddaughter who they haven’t seen since she was three. “I still cannot believe that we will leave. I will believe it when on the plane. All I want is to see my children, hug them and sleep”.