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Young Iraqi refugee pleads for reunification with mother

Huda Mohammed Ahmed, 14, hasn't seen her mother in more than a year

Huda Mohammed Ahmed skipped school Monday morning.

She had a good excuse: The 14-year-old high school student from Burnaby was a featured guest at a news conference at Vancouver city hall, where she joined a group urging the federal government to reunite refugee families split up by war and bureaucracy.

Ahmed, who stood on a toolbox behind a lectern to summarize her story, told a crowd of refugees, reporters, health officials, counsellors and others about how she and her 26-year-old brother fled Iraq last year but had to leave their mother behind in a refugee camp in Turkey.

Their father died in Iraq.

“My mother has been in Turkey for over a year, waiting to come to Canada,” said the soft-spoken Ahmed in her halting English, noting her mother’s file is still being processed. “I really miss her.”

Ahmed’s plea came two days after the federal government announced it was committing new resources and making policy changes to “speed up processing” to resettle Iraqi and Syrian refugees “without compromising existing security, criminality and medical screening,” according to a statement posted on Citizenship and Immigration Canada’s website.

Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, B.C.’s representative for Children and Youth, spoke at Monday’s news conference and greeted the government’s announcement with caution, saying “as with anything with government, the proof is always in what happens on the ground.” Turpel-Lafond said the government could do a lot more to reunite refugee families, saying there is no person in her role at the national level advocating for refugee families.

“A few powerful people in this country need to be on the side of these refugee kids and help them,” she told the Courier in an interview after the news conference. “What [these kids] are going to tell you is really sensible about what they’re facing and very fixable.”

What Turpel-Lafond did for Ahmed Monday was write a letter to the girl’s school principal, explaining why she wouldn’t be in school Monday morning. Ahmed’s brother worked the midnight shift the night before, earning money to pay off a government loan.

“I’m the representative for child and youth, I’m not her mother. But guess what? She doesn’t have a mother in Canada,” said Turpel-Lafond, noting Ahmed is “terrified” she’s going to get in trouble for speaking out. “I don’t understand why we can’t fix that because I know these things are fixable.”

As the news conference came to a close, Jamela Maloh, a government-assisted refugee from Iraq, stood before reporters and gave a tearful plea for the Canadian government to bring her 34-year-old daughter and four grandchildren from Syria to Canada.  

“She wants them to be in a safe place because she’s really worried about them,” said Serah Gazali, an Arabic-speaking counsellor who interpreted for the Courier. “She said she doesn’t know why the government isn’t allowing them to come here.”

Maloh’s brother was accepted to come to Canada but was killed in Syria. So far, two sons and one daughter, all under 20 years old, have joined Maloh in Vancouver. She explained the family has had to flee back and forth from Iraq to Syria because of the wars in both countries.

Ahmed, meanwhile, said her dream is to become a doctor.

mhowell@vancourier.com

@Howellings