How Was He a Refugee When He Had to Come Back Again
Later on vii years, refugee family reunite with happy tears in Lhokseumawe, Aceh
Ayub, 42, never experienced a fear bigger than that of losing his loved ones. He had sacrificed everything for his family.
Ayub and his two daughters met for the starting time time in vii years at the gate of the BLK refugee site in Lhokseumawe, Aceh.
© UNHCR/M.Azwir
As a Rohingya, a stateless minority in Myanmar, he and his family had long faced discrimination, including restrictions on their liberty of movement, pedagogy and religion. Ayub felt that he needed to leave his home in Rakhine Land to brand a living and provide for a wife and seven children.
In 2013, he bravely took a long journey by land, including stretches on pes, from Myanmar to Malaysia. He worked hard in Malaysia in his job every bit a construction worker, believing that better days would come up for him and his family unit.
Merely the outbreak of violence in 2017 forced more than than 742,000 Rohingya refugees to flee Myanmar for Bangladesh, among them Ayub's married woman, parents and children. After two years in the sprawling, crowded camps in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, the family decided to ship the first three daughters to Malaysia to join Ayub.
Their eldest daughter took a boat journey and arrived safely in Malaysia in 2019. 2 of her younger sisters, Sahira, 17, and Hafeza, 16, wanted to follow their sister in the hopes of beingness reunited with their father and accessing pedagogy and work opportunities. They embarked on a gunkhole journeying and into the hands of smugglers who told them, along with virtually 100 other passengers, that it would be a seven-twenty-four hours journeying to Malaysia.
Days turned to weeks, weeks to months, but the smugglers refused to land the boat unless the passengers paid college fees. Sahira and Hafeza witnessed horrific treatment by the smugglers, and there were days without food and clean h2o. Many people died and were thrown to the sea due to illness or beatings by the smugglers.
Ayub had not heard news of his two daughters since they left Bangladesh. The passengers on the gunkhole were not allowed to keep their belongings, including the cellphones that would allow them to communicate with family unit members. Neither he nor his wife had heard any news of the boat's whereabouts. They prepared for the worst.
"I almost lost hope, I thought they had already died in the gunkhole and that I'll never see them again," said Ayub, recalling how he felt during the dark days of waiting.
It was four months later, in late June 2020, that the media reported that a boat from Bangladesh had been sighted off the coast of Aceh. Ayub was in one case again hopeful, though he did non manage to notice the faces of Sahira and Hafeza in the many photos published in the news articles. He sought out acquaintances with connections in Indonesia to see if he could find information on his daughters, but found nothing. Once over again, he felt desperate, and he feared that his daughters were among the passengers who didn't survive the journeying.
Subsequently 10 days, he received a phone call from an unknown number, and he couldn't believe what he heard. It was Sahira and Hafeza calling with the help of UNHCR staff in Aceh. "I felt really happy when they called and told me that they survived. All of u.s.a. cried during the phone call."
After hearing the daughters' full story, Ayub knew right then that he wouldn't want them to continue their journey to Malaysia to meet him. He would not hazard Sahira and Hafeza going through the same pain again and decided that he would go to Indonesia himself to encounter them.
With the help of swain refugees in Malaysia, Ayub institute a mode to accomplish Aceh by boat. The gunkhole journey was safety, but upon his arrival Ayub was put in detention for irregular entry. UNHCR advocated for his release with the authorities and later on 22 days, he was finally set complimentary.
25 November was the day Ayub thought would never come. He was allowed to leave the detention centre and was taken to the Balai Latihan Kerja in Kandang, where his daughters were staying. As he approached the gate, he saw Sahira and Hafeza waiting to greet him. The three embraced each other in happy tears. "Words can't depict how I felt, I just think the iii of us were very emotional. We cried while having each other in our artillery," Ayub recalled.
"It's been vii years that I oasis't seen my father. I near forgot what he looks similar. I never want to be separated from my father again," said Sahira.
Hafeza said later the reunion, the three of them prayed to give thanks to Allah. She also relayed how grateful she was to all the people who helped her and her sister reunite with their father, from the Indonesia authorities to humanitarian workers and UNHCR staff.
Reflecting on the hardships that his family unit had experienced, including back dwelling house in Rakhine Country, Myanmar, Ayub said that he and his daughters have no concrete plans for their future. Their but promise is to ane day be together with the rest of their remaining family in People's republic of bangladesh, and to have a happy life in whichever country will accept them as citizens.
*All names inverse for protection reasons
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Source: https://www.unhcr.org/id/en/13421-after-7-years-refugee-family-reunite-with-happy-tears-in-lhokseumawe-aceh.html
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