Syrian refugees in Egypt
Korea.net has launched a new collaborative project with its honorary reporters around the world. Each honorary reporter will write a story on the same topic, but from each of their own home cities. The stories will then be shared with our community of Korea.net readers.
For the first subject in the series, Korea.net asked our honorary reporters to send in a touching story from their home communities. Here's our tenth story on this subject, from Egypt.
Home.
What does this word mean? Does it mean residence, borders, dreams, rights, hope or what?
Home, in my opinion, is where you feel safe, and no one can understand this meaning except for those who are deprived of it.
While we talk about home, we should not forget the Syrian people who left everything behind to search for a safe and warm place to live. Syrian refugees have been arriving in Egypt since 2012 and their numbers began to increase until they numbered 140,000, as the U.N. estimated in January 2015. However, since not all Syrians are registered with the UNHCR, experts at the U.N. and other organizations speculated that the actual number of Syrians in Egypt could be much higher, perhaps to the tune of an additional 40,000 or 50,000 people.
Although they faced hard times, there was always a light at the end of the tunnel. Here are some examples of people who don’t know what failure is.
The first example is a young doctor named Hazem, a 30-year-old radiologist who started to work as a vegetable seller until he found work at a Syrian restaurant, and got famous within two years of its opening.
A second example is Amir, a 30-year-old doctor who was doing a master's degree before he came to Egypt and had to leave it so that he could provide a suitable place for his family. He also works in a restaurant, and realizes that he should work at anything to gain money, regardless of his educational degrees, to overcome his difficulties and settle.
Moatz Maghraby is a third example. He works as a salad chef, and he was an owner of five famous restaurants in his country. He said that, “No matter how hard you work, you have to endure at any salary or at any place, even if it's away from the place you live. Eventually, you get a great experience and can work in a better place."
“Nobody said it would be easy. It’s such a shame for us not to work.”
There are many stories of successful Syrians who defeated the obstacles they faced just to find a better place and to provide a good life for their families.
Chapeau to Syrian refugees everywhere!
By Nagwan A. Saeed
Korea.net Honorary Reporter
Photo: Reuters News Agency, http://www.dw.com
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