We Refugees Archive

The decision to leave Syria was so difficult, we were living in a city that was bombed, and we took the decision for the kids first, the young men first, they came here to work. After the bombs we couldn’t live in Aleppo. It was so hard, only my husband was working. So we decided to leave everybody and come here. After we came, we thought that we came for a short period but we stayed here and it has been nine years. So, it was in the end of 2012 that we left Syria. At that time, eight of my nine kids were going to the school. And one was married and she was out of Syria. […]

I came together with my husband and some of my younger kids. We stayed like one week with a family in the Syrian side. We payed money to stay with them. Because we couldn’t go and pass the border and after we went, we were so tired. After that we came to the Turkish side, we went to a bus station, cut our tickets and came with bus directly to Istanbul. […]

It was so emotional. When I was waiting to cross the border, because I was crying over the people that left behind me, my family, I was leaving everything, […] we left all the house, we left everything that we bought for the house, inside the house. We left everything behind us, we didn’t get anything, we came here just with clothes. On the other hand, I was happy to go to see my children again. They have been three months in Turkey, I haven’t heard anything about them, they are all under 20 years old, they are still young. So, I was happy in the same time. The moment I met them, it was so sentimental moment for me. Because, it was three months only but I felt it was like years. After that, after I get to Turkey, it took me one year to get contact with my family, my brothers. I couldn’t contact with them, it took me one year to get that.

Ummuahmde fled the war in Syria in 2012, together with her family. Since then they live in Istanbul and run a small shop there. In the interview passage she talks about the hard and emotional decision to flee from her home town, about the flight from Syria to Turkey and about leaving behind her loved ones and all her property.

This interview was conducted in English and Arabic by Elif Yenigün for the We Refugees Archive in 2021.