Sawsan's story

Sawsan and her husband originally lived in Jobar, the first district in Damascus that got bombed in 2012. She explains that 20-50 bombs are still being thrown in the area on a daily basis. Her brother, Monzer, died in a bomb attack in 2014, only 24 years old.

Meet Sawsan (b. 1987) from Damascus, Syria.

Sawsan and her husband originally lived in Jobar, the first district in Damascus that got bombed in 2012. 

She explains that their old house has been left in ruins a long time ago and that 20-50 bombs are still being thrown in the area on a daily basis. There are still 50.000 people living in the district, but before the war the number of residents was around 250.000. 

Sawsan’s brother, Monzer, died in a bomb attack in 2014. He was only 24 years old.

When the bombs started falling, the family fled to the home of Sawsan’s parents - for a while they lived 10 people in the house. None of them could work because of the war. 

Sawsan, her husband and children then fled from Damascus to Tripoli in Libya. Here they lived for two years, where her husband worked as a carpenter. But shootings were common and it reminded them of the conditions in Syria. Furthermore, the school did not want to register their son Salem because he was from Syria.

In order to get away from Libya they got onboard an old fishing ship - the same did 1.500 other refugees. They sailed for 12 hours until they were found by the Italian coast guard – in total they ended up being on the water for 48 hours.
In 2014 they came to Denmark and today they have a residence permit.

Photo by Martin Thaulow, Copyright © Refugee.Today/Good people.