Finding safe haven far from terror of civil war

Lifestyle –  Judy Murphy meets a Syrian couple  who are making a new life in Galway

Suad al Darra and her husband Housam first met each other in the ancient city of Palmyra. As they fell in love and planned their wedding, they hoped to honeymoon there.

But Syria’s civil war, which started in 2011, put paid to all their plans.

Housam’s father was killed in the war, while their dream of rearing a family in their home city of Damascus is unlikely to be realised any time soon. Meanwhile, Palmyra is under the control of the fundamentalist Islamic group, Isis, which has destroyed many of its priceless temples.

The couple now live in Galway City, where they work in data analytics research – Housam at the Insight Centre for Data Analytics, NUIG and Suad for Fujitsu, a partner of Insight.

Suad, an engineer, and Housam, a linguist, explain that what began as a genuine uprising for democracy in Syria in 2011 was hijacked by outside forces, turning it into a regional war that has destroyed the country.

As for Isis, Suad says there’s only one way of halting its progress. American corporations must stop buying oil from the terrorist group, which has its origins in Iraq. Although Isis claim they want to create an Islamic state across the Middle East, they are mostly about capturing oil-fields, she says. If the West stopped buying oil, Isis would run out of money for its activities.

Meanwhile, over a half a million Syrians have been killed and 11 million been displaced in the war, with thousands now facing terrible obstacles in their bid to reach Europe.

Stopping Syria’s war is the only solution, say Suad and Housam. But that won’t be easy, because what started out as a genuine uprising against President Bashir al-Assad has become a battlefield for outsiders. Isis, Iran and now Russia are all there, all with their own agendas, as is Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement. In the meantime, Syrians are going through hell.

Suad and Housam have been living in Galway since 2014, two years after Syria’s civil war started.

Getting here involved exile in Egypt in 2013 – just as that country suffered a military uprising – and attempts to find work in different countries, before Suad got a job in Galway. Even then, Housam couldn’t get an Irish visa, and they parted in Egypt in January 2014, not knowing when they would see each other again.

The previous January Housam’s father had been killed by a sniper as he tried to bring food to Syrian-born Palestinian refugees who were starving in Syria’s besieged Yarmouk Camp.

While Suad and Housam were in Egypt, Housam got a job offer in Dubai, but Suad was not allowed to accompany him. He wouldn’t leave her in Egypt, because the military coup had affected their visas and it was dangerous.

“There was chaos. It was full of crime and drugs,” Housam says of Egypt.

Suad, meanwhile, was interviewed for the Fujitsu job on Skype, having applied via a friend in Galway. She got a visa, but her salary was deemed insufficient to support Housam. They agreed that if he didn’t get an Irish visa within six months, they would both return to Syria, despite the war. Fortunately he did, after obtaining a four-month visa for Lebanon, which was safer than Egypt.

His only sister still lives in Egypt, having married there. His mother is in Syria, but with her two children gone and husband dead, her life is difficult.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.