Safely far from Syria

Mohammad Alshahoud hid in the tall grass for five hours in the dark near the Syrian-Jordanian border with his wife, six kids and 93-year-old father and mother. Syrian military personnel, having just shot at them, were watching nearby, looking for any movement.

“Just bulldoze over them,” Mohammad heard one say from a distance.

By 2 a.m., Mohammad decided they could move, and under cover of the night, he and his family made it across the border and into the relative safety Jordan could provide.

Mohammad tells his story, through a translator, sitting with his family in a comfortable home in Kelowna, 10,000 kilometres from the violence he saw only three years before.

He maintains a sense of humour while describing life back home, regularly breaking into laughter. His children are quick to interject and add a detail Mohammad may have forgotten.

The Alshahoud family lived in the city of Homs before the civil war broke out. It was a “simple, peaceful” city of about 1.3 million people, says Mohammad.

Life was comfortable, and it was easy to find a job and support a family.

Despite this, the Alshahouds were living under an oppressive government.

“You feel that you don’t have freedom, you cannot talk and sometimes, if you say something, you will be in trouble and they will tell you that you are against the regime, even if you just try to express your opinion,” said Mohammad. “Very simply, you will disappear.”

In the summer of 2011, after 40 years of Bashar al-Assad’s and his father, Hafez al-Assad’s, oppressive governments, people began to protest in the cities of Daraa and Homs.

“They started protesting and chanting and writing posters and stuff, so first the police intervened and then it got worse, and they brought the army with tanks and started shooting people,” Mohammad said. “I saw people dead on the street. It got worse after that.”

Nine months after the protesting broke out, Mohammad took his family and left the city he had spent his entire life in.

They moved to a small town, 50 km away, but after 40 days, that area became too dangerous as well.

They travelled to a small town called Nasib near the Jordanian border and waited for nightfall. Mohammad knew he needed to get his family out of Syria.

On April 20, 2012, they made their way across the border, ducking bullets and hiding in tall grass for hours.

At one point, as bullets flew past them in the dark, Mohammad’s elderly mother yelled at the military, “What are you doing? We’re just trying to escape the war!”

Of the 500 people escaping with them, 63 were caught by the Syrian military, most of whom were women and children.

Mohammad said the Jordanian people were welcoming. They were put up in a refugee camp when they first arrived, not the tent city one might imagine, but a large neighbourhood of permanent brick structures.

After two days in the camp, he moved his family to Mafraq, a smaller town, with a population of about 60,000.

Refugees aren't permitted to work in Jordan, but Mohammad risked deportation and sold cattle and sheep at the local market to provide for his family.

In the spring of 2014, the United Nations approached Mohammad and asked if they would be willing to leave the Middle East, if a country was willing to take them.

After 15 months and two rounds of interviews with the UN and Canadian embassy, the Alshahouds landed in Kelowna.

The Central Okanagan Refugee Committee, a joint operation funded by the First United Church, Rutland United Church and Winfield United Church, raised thousands of dollars to sponsor the Alshahouds, mainly through community donations.

CORC found housing for the family, and even secured Mohammad a job at Harmony Honda, where he now works part time.

Before coming to Canada, he knew where the country was on a map and had a general idea of what the weather was like (cold), but that was about it.

“It’s very good. We are safe here, we have shelter, a house, food, there is no trouble,” Mohammad said. “Even in Jordan, you are not at ease, and there is sometimes tensions between people. Here, we feel safe, even though we still think about back home and what’s going on.”

The Alshahouds are adapting to Canadian life quickly. Mohammad and his wife, Sara, are attending English classes downtown, and their sons, Ahmad, Akram and Ayman along with daughter Angham are attending Rutland Secondary School. Their youngest daughter, Joria, who was just six when they crossed into Jordan, goes to Pearson Road Elementary.

Mohammad still has two daughters and one son in the Middle East. Anaam, their 19-year-old daughter, moved back to Syria from Jordan to be with her husband, who was unable to leave. Their eldest son is in Jordan, but is considering moving back to Syria, where he is able to work.

Mohammad and Sara worry about them daily.

Despite their deep ties to the country, Mohammad has no plans to go back.

“There is no future to go back, maybe in the future we can go to visit, but I don’t see it being safe,” he said. “Maybe in 50 years from now … this kind of conflict lasts a long time.”

Despite the horrors he has seen, Mohammad believes Assad’s regime will be toppled eventually.

“I’m pretty sure he (Assad) will go away,” he said. “From what I know from history, if the revolution comes, always the regime will change, always the people will win at the end.”