15-year wait for family of Somali refugees to arrive in city finally over

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This article was published 28/11/2017 (2881 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Askar family matriarch has landed in Winnipeg.

Sixty-year-old Badar Asha Askar was barely halfway down the airport steps Tuesday afternoon when her nephew, Marcus Askar, enveloped her in a hug. Both aunt and nephew smiled hugely, wiped tears from their eyes and then, for a long moment, pressed their foreheads together and whispered overdue hellos.

It’s been more than 20 years since they’ve seen one another.

Marcus Askar has been here in Winnipeg, where he’s lived since arriving as a Somali refugee back in 1996, while Badar has been in Djibouti, waiting for her claim to be processed.

It was a long wait. Tom Denton of Hospitality House said the Askar family file is the oldest on the agency’s books, dating back to 2002. On Tuesday, their wait was over. Askar, her three children and her five grandchildren finally arrived.

The nine new arrivals bring the tally of family members Askar has sponsored to 160, although only 50 or so have made permanent homes in Winnipeg. But while every moment has been joyful and filled with the requisite teasing about Winnipeg’s cold, Askar said this arrival felt particularly poignant because his aunt is the family’s true matriarch.

The last time he saw her, he said her eldest daughter — his cousin — was just a baby. Now she’s a mother of three, her youngest perched on her hip, a wide-eyed one-year-old taking in the welcoming crew.

Askar struggled at first, watching the flight board flash “delayed” and then “arrived,” with how to explain how he was feeling.

“I’m going to faint when I see them,” he said, clutching a handmade “Welcome home” sign.

Only a handful of relatives came to the airport, Askar said, because “they didn’t want to cry in public.” The Askar family only got the good news a week or two ago. Since then, it’s been a scramble to find an apartment, to get bedding and winter jackets, scarves, hats and mittens.

But on Sunday, he said, they’ll celebrate.

There will be food, hugs and kisses, Askar said. It’ll be a chance for Badar to meet the babies born in Canada that she’s never had a chance to know.

“We’re going to put her in a — what do they call it? — a golden chair,” he laughed. “She’ll sit and we’ll make a line to kiss and hug.”

There’s still one member of the Askar family who hasn’t made it to Winnipeg yet, but Denton said he’s working to track him down. Tuesday’s arrival was momentous for him as well, he said, because it’s been so many years in the making. He flipped through the lengthy sponsorship file that represents 15 long years of trying to reunite brothers and sisters with cousins and aunts and grandmothers.