Sleeping on the streets after fleeing bombs; children out of school for years; medical treatment attempted at home due to fear of deportation – these are some of the horrors faced by Syrian families who were approved for resettlement to Ireland two years ago but have since been abandoned in a war zone.
Nearly 400 Syrians in Lebanon attended interviews with an Irish delegation in November 2022, when they were given a document saying that they could expect to be resettled to Ireland by the end of 2023. Instead, they say the Irish Government has gone quiet and they worry that Israel’s war with Hizbullah will soon make travel impossible.
In 2019, Ireland committed to resettling up to 2,900 refugees between 2020 and 2023, most of them supposed to be Syrians coming from Jordan and Lebanon. Refugee resettlement is aimed at giving some of the world’s most vulnerable people a new start in a safe place.
Only 576 were actually resettled, 486 of whom came from Lebanon, UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) figures show.
A spokesman for the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, which has responsibility for Ireland’s resettlement programmes, said the target was impacted by Covid-19 travel restrictions, the increase in arrivals of international protection applicants and Ukrainians, and the broader “pressures on available accommodation”.
Two years after the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, and nine months after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, an Irish delegation went to Lebanon in November 2022, where they interviewed and approved about 375 Syrians for travel to Ireland, UNHCR figures show. Only four families have travelled so far, the Irish department spokesman said this month. The rest are still waiting.
The Irish Times met five families between the Bekaa Valley, eastern Lebanon, and capital city Beirut, and spoke to more than 20 others through phone calls or WhatsApp messages. All escaped one war only to be trapped in another.
Among them are survivors of torture, detention and kidnapping and people whose close relatives have been killed or disappeared.
It’s like if someone is drowning but hanging on to wood
— Huda Haya, who was accepted to travel to Ireland with her husband, two teenage daughters and 21-year-old son
After Israeli forces began their assault on Lebanon with what experts call one of the most intense aerial campaigns in contemporary history in late September, their situations have become even more desperate. There have been at least 10,775 incidents of air strikes and shelling in just over a year, according to Lebanese security sources, with a huge escalation since September 23rd. At least 2,574 people have been killed and more than 12,000 wounded, Lebanon’s health ministry figures show – the vast majority since mid-September.
Some interviewees have since been displaced, sometimes multiple times. Others are unable to move out of areas with a strong Hizbullah presence, even though they might be targeted. All of the children The Irish Times met in person were out of school, either from before the current escalation or since, as schools have been turned into displacement shelters. Their parents all echoed the same appeal: they want the Irish Government to fulfil its pledge and take their families to Ireland as soon as possible, before it is too late.
They feel trapped and forgotten, and worry that Beirut’s airport – the only one that international flights leave from – will soon be bombed or shut completely. Some cried as they explained their predicament.
While the Irish Government has spoken publicly about organising seats on flights out of Lebanon for Irish citizens, there has been no recognition of the Syrian refugees who put their lives on hold after they were selected to travel to Ireland.
“We just want to get out of Lebanon. We don’t want anything more,” said a father of three, who did not want to be named for security reasons.
“We will live in a tent or a slum or in the street, we [can] manage by ourselves, we just want to get out of the atmosphere of wars, death and destruction,” he said. “My family and I left under the heavy shelling of the town where I lived and were displaced to a second town that was bombed.
“The smell of death is everywhere ... Time is running out ... There is no longer any patience.”
Another father, Basil Khalil Al-Nofal, said he, his wife and children – a 12-year-old and seven-year-old – are living in “hell”.
“We left our homes and are sleeping in the street for fear of war,” he said. They have been turned away from official shelters for displaced people, some of which have been documented as not accepting Syrians.
“Our children are in a very bad psychological state from the sounds of explosions and the sound barrier being broken by warplanes every day.” In Ireland, “we are ready to live in a camp,” he said. “We want to protect our children.”
Even before the outbreak of war in Lebanon, conditions were very precarious for Syrian refugees.
Months before the Syrians selected were interviewed by the Irish delegation, Lebanese authorities announced that they wanted to begin deporting 15,000 Syrians back to Syria each month, a plan that Human Rights Watch called “unsafe and unlawful”.
Though the actual figures seem to be lower, that has not prevented the spread of terror.
A UN report released in March said UNHCR knew of 13,772 Syrians who were either deported to Syria or turned back at the border in 2023 alone.
Human rights groups and investigators have documented cases where deportees are detained after their return, with some dying in detention.
Some male interviewees, waiting to travel to Ireland with their families, said they have slept in fields or orchards over the past few years, so as not to be caught home when there are raids rounding up Syrians for deportation.
Many of the Syrians interviewed said they believe they are “listed”, meaning they could be incarcerated and even killed by the regime of Bashar al-Assad, which controls most of Syria, if they are forced on to Syrian territory.
Since the Syrian war began in 2011, Assad has overseen mass killings of his own people, including through a detention system in which close to 100,000 people have been forcibly disappeared, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights.
Some interviewees also said they believe they would be in danger from other militant groups.
Many said they have nowhere to go back to, because their former homes were destroyed or their property seized. Some came from areas previously under brutal sieges, or struck by chemical weapons attacks, carried out by the Assad regime. At least one comes from a well-known opposition family. Many of the adults spoke quietly of the trauma they still suffer from, because of what they witnessed in Syria.
In Lebanon, they found more problems.
“We fled the war in our homeland and became refugees in Lebanon, where we are also caught in a cycle of crises ... It has been two years since we underwent interviews with the delegation, and our circumstances are only worsening,” wrote a mother of a four-year-old boy and one-year-old girl.
She said she was assaulted by her former landlord, who also threatened her children. “Unfortunately, I cannot file a complaint against him due to my status as a Syrian refugee, and I feel scared for our safety,” she said.
“You are our lifeline that we cling to. We hope that the esteemed officials in Ireland will respond to our request and expedite our travel procedures, as our current situation is very bad. Thank you very much and we hope our voices reach them.”
Everyone who described the experience of being interviewed by the Irish delegation in November 2022 mentioned how nice and polite they found them, with one young woman even laughing that the Garda were nothing like the Syrian police she grew up afraid of.
A father sent a photo of a drawing his children did for the delegation: it portrayed their family waving Irish flags in front of a map of Ireland and a love heart.
In the months afterwards, some parents began following Irish news, while one child enthusiastically attempted an Irish accent. But the excitement dried up as the waiting continued.
Still, knowing that they could be flown to a new life in Ireland at any time affected the decisions interviewees made over the last two years. These included smaller ones, like not fixing a fridge or installing air conditioning, and big ones, like turning down a marriage proposal or a business opportunity requiring long-term commitment, and even rejecting a scholarship in Asia because of fear the family would be separated forever.
While the Irish department spokesman said they made efforts to keep families updated with developments, interviewees differed when it came to their contact with the UN and Irish Government after the interviews. Some said they did not want to “nag” anyone and have been waiting for phone calls, adding that both the UN and any Irish officials contact them through a private number meaning there is no way to call them back.
Those who had direct contact with UNHCR said they were told their cases are in the hands of the Irish Government.
Some sent emails to the Department of Justice or other departments, but said they got vague replies or no answer.
One woman scrolled through Instagram messages she sent to Irish politicians, including Minister for Justice Helen McEntee and Minister for Integration Roderic O’Gorman, who did not respond. “We have the right to live in peace,” she wrote. “Remember that behind every refugee decision is a life waiting to be saved from the suffering of war in Lebanon.”
Some families became excited again when they were asked to carry out medical examinations in May this year, which medics told them meant they should be travelling within a few months. Several showed The Irish Times their medical results and evidence that they had received vaccinations. They have still not travelled.
We are being exposed to the risk of death after we felt that the Irish Government gave us life
— Syrian man Ibrahim Khalil Al-Hamoud Al-Khalaf, who says he was supposed to travel to Ireland with his wife and their two children, aged 11 and five
Fiona Hurley, the chief executive of migrant and refugee rights organisation Nasc, said it is “increasingly important for governments to fulfil and expand their commitments to legal pathways for migrant populations” given that the numbers of forcibly displaced people worldwide are at record levels.
“In light of the current crisis in Lebanon, it is incumbent on all of us to redouble our efforts to offer safety to Syrian families who are facing displacement yet again.”
She said along with efforts by the Government, the Irish public can also help through the community sponsorship programme, which allows “groups of friends, colleagues or neighbours to directly sponsor a Syrian refugee family in Lebanon to come”.
The Department of Integration spokesman said the ongoing accommodation shortage, as well as the increases in international protection applicants and arrivals of Ukrainians in Ireland, continues to affect their ability to resettle those chosen from Lebanon, but they are monitoring the situation and are “conscious of how difficult lengthy waiting periods to travel are on the families concerned.”
More people are scheduled to travel next month, he said, and the Irish resettlement programme will “continue to work to make sure the families are brought to Ireland at the earliest opportunity.”
“For me, it’s like if someone is drowning but hanging on to wood,” said Huda Haya (39), who was accepted to travel to Ireland with her husband, two teenage daughters and 21-year-old son.
The Irish Times met the family in their home, a semi-temporary structure inside a refugee camp in the Bekaa Valley, an area that has been regularly targeted by Israeli air strikes. One daughter spoke of her dreams to become a doctor. She is out of education now.
Haya says her husband and son sleep rough to avoid being deported; her husband has already been detained twice and was forced to sign papers saying he’s illegally in Lebanon, she said. “Here in Lebanon the pressure is so massive and big ... There is extreme racism here, in work, in finding an apartment.” Her husband must accept jobs for very little money, she explained. If he is returned to Syria, she is certain he will be imprisoned.
Haya has tried to contact the Irish Government to ask whether the family can travel soon. “We sent emails, calls, no one heard us, no one listened to us. When we reach out to them they say it’s an issue of accommodation,” she says.
“Maybe the airport will be shut down in a strike and we will never leave. We always check if the airport is still open and which airlines are still open so we can still fly.”
Personal stories of Syrians approved for travel to Ireland and abandoned in Lebanon
Mushera Shikho and family: ‘I want a future for my children’
On September 23rd, the first day of the major escalation in Israel’s assault on Lebanon, an air strike went off beside 40-year-old Mushera Shikho and her family’s home, damaging the building.
The Syrian Kurdish family had previously escaped the Syrian city of Aleppo, and found refuge in Maarakeh, about 30km from Lebanon’s border with Israel.
“We saw a man soaked in blood,” recalled her youngest son, eight-year-old Lavan, about the aftermath of that air strike – which would become one of many.
Within 10 minutes, they had packed what they could and fled forever. Sixteen-year-old Silva’s saxophone and drawing materials were left behind, as was Lavan’s Playstation. They found temporary accommodation in Beirut due to the charity of a Kurdish Christian church.
As money ran out, Silva, and her 14-year-old brother Haydar, found work in a bakery. They hoped to earn between $10-$20 (€9.25-€18.50) a day, but their mother abandoned the plan when air strikes intensified again. “I want a future for my children, my daughter should be in the 10th grade but now she’s in the eighth grade ... [my] son should be in ninth grade but he’s lower,” said Shikho.
She cried as she spoke. “We like peace, we like to be away from troubles ... I would love to leave Lebanon.”
Ghadah Alhraki and her two daughters: ‘We live in extreme fear’
Ghadah Alhraki lives with her two daughters, Amal (24) and Shimaa (20), at the back of a petrol station in the Bekaa Valley, one of the areas regularly hit by Israeli air strikes.
Since they were told they were accepted for resettlement to Ireland, “we feel our life is on hold”, said Alhraki. Her husband died in 2015, aged just 50, from a stroke Alhraki believes was brought on by the constant stream of bad news about his family and friends in Syria.
She said her younger daughter turned down a scholarship to study in Asia as the family did not want to be separated, with the prospect of Ireland before them. Now Shimaa – who volunteers distributing food to the displaced – has started having panic attacks. Her older sister, Amal, was working as an accountant but lost her job because of the war.
“I’m old, everything is gone for me, but I want my daughters to have a good life,” Alhraki said. “We are three women alone. We live in extreme fear. We feel afraid to walk around. We hear bombing and shelling all night, also the drones. We feel as if one will hit us eventually.”
MH, KS and their children (aged between seven and 16): ‘If you take [us] I can live in a tent ... I just want to be away from this war’
In an area of Beirut known to have a high presence of Hizbullah, the militant group and political party that Israel say their war is against, another Syrian family – who asked to be identified by their initials for security reasons – told their story as Israeli surveillance drones buzzed above. The ceiling of their one-bedroom apartment still had cracks as a result of the 2020 Beirut port explosion.
MH works as a plumber and at maintaining heating systems, but said he is unable to take certain jobs because moving around carries the risk of arrest and deportation.
His wife KS cried as she spoke about the bullying, physical assaults and sexual harassment suffered by her children – aged between seven and 16. In Lebanon today, Syrians are seen effectively as a punching bag, she explained, and when some Lebanese locals are unhappy – such as after the assassination of Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah on September 27th – Syrians are even beaten up in the streets.
About their youngest child, KS said: “Every time he hears fighter jets, bombs, drones he says ‘why doesn’t the Ireland Government want to take us?’ And when he sees a [passenger] plane he says ‘maybe that plane is coming to take us to Ireland.”
KS said her children were getting psychological help, but stopped it because of the fear of deportation related to their lack of legal residency. They have now missed five years of school due to the series of crises Lebanon has suffered through and issues around finances, but also because they need documents their parents are unable to get for fear of deportation. MH said their dream is to find education for their children and a chance to live in peace; they are “active people”, happy to work and contribute to society. “If you take [us] I can live in a tent, I can buy a tent, I just want to be away from this war and this pressure,” he said.
“Even if we have to take a boat and sail to Ireland I can do it,” added KS, who said she’d love to open a small restaurant in Ireland serving Middle Eastern cuisine.
Mariam (17): ‘We live without education because of war’
“In Lebanon, I am Syrian, they don’t accept us,” said 17-year-old Mariam. She said she was supposed to travel to Ireland with her parents, two younger brothers, aunt and her 74-year-old grandmother. “These two years I dream about this travel, I dream to be in Ireland,” she said. “We can’t return to Syria, we don’t have a home.”
Mariam hopes to become a pharmacist to “help all the people in all the world”. She is partially motivated because of her father’s heart disease – in Ireland, she imagined, he could receive any necessary treatment. Her dad could also work with cars, her aunt can make dresses, and her mother is “so smart”, she said. Right now, her little brother can’t sleep because of the air strikes, and all of them are out of school: “We live without education because of war.”
She has another dream. “Since birth I haven’t had a bedroom for myself. I sleep in the livingroom, me and my two brothers. My aunt and my grandmother live with us ... My dream, a little dream but it means so much for me to have a bedroom, to have privacy.”
Ibrahim Khalil Al-Hamoud Al-Khalaf, his wife and two children: ‘When the UN told me my file for travel had been accepted by Ireland, I rejoiced in the goodness’
Ibrahim Khalil Al-Hamoud Al-Khalaf also lives in the Bekaa Valley. He was supposed to travel with his 29-year-old wife, their 11 year-old daughter and five-year-old son, who has a heart defect, he said. Along with him and his wife, their daughter now works “in agriculture”, after she was barred from school because they have no residency documents. Al-Khalaf said he should be “considered dead if I return to Syria”.
“When the [United] Nations told me that my file for travel had been accepted by Ireland, I rejoiced in the goodness and rejoiced that a new life had been granted to us ... I want the Irish Government to know that by delaying our resettlement, we are being exposed to the risk of death after we felt that it gave us life.”
Mayada Quaid Suleiman: flights were booked for her and her children - but then they were turned away
Mayada Quaid Suleiman (35), has a picture of Irish travel documents that her family were given, which resemble Irish passports. Her, and her four children, aged between seven and 12, were the only family The Irish Times spoke to who had flights to Ireland booked for them, but Suleiman says they were stopped from boarding because of a custody issue with her ex-husband, which she says is now resolved. She had a certificate showing that she had completed a “cultural orientation” focused on going to Ireland, and said she had been told they would be staying in Dublin in a place “similar to a hotel”.
“[My children], they want to travel, they have suffered a lot here. And it doesn’t matter to them which country they travel to, they just want to leave. At the airport they were crying a lot because they thought they lost their chance.”
* This article was amended on October 29th, 2024 to add comment from the Department of Integration.
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