Meet Iceland’s first Syrian refugees: ’For us, it’s the freezer’ - Telegraph
▻http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/iceland/12165357/Meet-Icelands-first-Syrian-refugees-For-us-its-the-freezer.html
Like the other families, the Al Mohammads did not apply to come to Iceland. They left their home in the city of Aleppo in 2012 following repeated rocket attacks in their neighbourhood and after many of their neighbours armed themselves with Kalashnikovs. “I saw the Syrian Army dragging a man from a car through the streets,” said Mr Al Mohammad. “And three of my friends were killed. One of them did not see a checkpoint when he was driving and the person at the checkpoint shot him dead right away.”
Fearing for his family’s safety, Mr Al Mohammad decided they must flee, but assumed they would only be away for a short time. In fact, they spent three years living in Lebanon, where more than a million Syrian refugees were living by the end of last year.
In Lebanon, where temperatures rarely fall below 10C (50F) and summer days can be hotter than 30C, the family lived in an abandoned garage where Mr Al Mohammad and his wife slept beside his 67-year-old mother, Noufa, their 18-year-old daughter, Reem, and their five sons, who now age between 17 and two. The United Nations have them free water and electricity as well as food tokens that allowed them to buy a basic dirt of meat and rice. But there was no formal education for their children.
When a United Nations agency asked Mr Al Mohammad last year if his family would like to go to Iceland, he was taken aback. “It was totally strange,” he said. “When I asked the clerk in the UN office ‘where’s Iceland?’ he said: ‘It’s next to Norway’. But afterwards, I discovered it is 1,000 miles away.
“He kept telling me about the good summers in Iceland. I didn’t know why. Later on I discovered.”