Life of freedom in a new country starts at age 83

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This article was published 30/03/2018 (2752 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

At 83, Shireen Khudida survived a harrowing escape from Islamic State terrorists, a desolate refugee camp in Turkey and being uprooted to another continent, culture and climate. When the matriarch of a large Yazidi family arrived at the Winnipeg airport with her son and his wife and five children Thursday, she couldn’t have been happier.

More than 100 members of the Yazidi community — including two of Khudida’s daughters and their families, who arrived in Manitoba as refugees more than a year ago — were there to greet her.

“I’m exhausted, but happy,” the Kurdish-speaking woman said through an interpreter before getting kisses from what appeared to be a never-ending stream of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Her daughter, Khokhe Murad, said she wasn’t sure if she would see her mother again, given Khudida’s age and all that she has been through.

“It’s the best feeling,” said Murad, who arrived in Winnipeg 13 months ago with her family after they were sponsored privately by Operation Ezra (a coalition of faith groups led by Winnipeg’s Jewish community that has sponsored and now welcomed 10 Yazidi families, totalling 55 people).

Murad’s sister, who found refuge with her family in Nebraska, made the trip to Winnipeg to welcome their mother.

“She’ll do fine,” said Murad, who will be close to her mom when she settles into the home Operation Ezra rented for her and her son’s family (five children, ranging in age from 12 to 24) across the back lane.

They were among the 40,000 Yazidi chased up Mount Sinjar in 2014 by IS in northern Iraq. Many members of the Kurdish religious minority did not survive.

“They were some of the lucky ones because they managed to escape,” said Nafiya Naso, a Yazidi refugee and settlement worker with Winnipeg’s Jewish Child and Family Services. The plight of the persecuted ethnic minority captured the world’s attention and inspired Operation Ezra.

The arrival of the 10th Yazidi family on the day before Passover — the Jewish holiday that celebrates freedom and liberation from slavery in ancient Egypt — was a fact not lost on many at the airport to welcome them.

“It’s kind of a wonderful convergence,” said Belle Jarniewski of the Manitoba Multifaith Council, who is also director of the Freeman Family Foundation Holocaust Education Centre at the Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada.

“Here are the people who’ve languished in a refugee camp after suffering this genocide who have finally come to freedom in a free country,” Jarniewski said at Richardson International Airport. “It’s joyful for us.”

“For the Jewish community, this time of Passover is an interesting analogy,” said Operation Ezra spokesman Michel Aziza. “The reason many of us got involved is because of the similarities to the experiences of Jewish people around the Second World War.

“There is an element of being able to rescue people from an area of conflict and providing them with a safe haven,” said Aziza. “There is an element of celebrating freedom.”

The first Yazidi family privately sponsored by the Winnipeg group arrived in July 2016. Thursday’s arrival of Khudida’s family was the 10th and final group Operation Ezra had applied to bring to Canada — but it won’t be the last, its spokesman said.

“It’s because of our ability to continue raising funds and also the interest of many people in the community and volunteers who want to do more” that the group hopes to soon sponsor some 20 more people, Aziza said.

“Many of the families are gainfully employed,” he said. “They can help us now.”

And they want to help, said Naso, who arrived in Manitoba as a refugee in 1999 when she was a child.

“The families are very happy, grateful and ready to pay it forward,” Naso said.

The ninth Operation Ezra family arrived in Canada three weeks ago and some of the family members will be starting full-time jobs in the next few days, Naso said. “We have 15 individuals working full-time and part-time jobs, everyone is attending school or an (English as an additional language) program and everyone is attending our EAL class every Thursday evening.”

She said families with vehicles are helping the more recent arrivals — and some government-assisted Yazidi refugees — with grocery shopping, translating and other day-to-day activities.

Having Naso, who speaks Kurdish and is focused on helping the Yazidi families integrate, is a big part of their resettlement success, Aziza said.

Operation Ezra volunteers and the Salvation Army have been helping the families get set up, too, with clothing and furniture, he said.

“We’ve made a conscious effort to locate all the families in the same area (near Grant Park Shopping Centre). We don’t have families all over the city.”

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca