Syrian family in St. John's hopes for help to find missing nephews
Ammar, 24, and Mohamed, 9, have been missing in Turkey since March 27
A Syrian family living in St. John's is worried for two missing relatives, who were planning to make the dangerous journey from Turkey to Greece by sea more than a month ago.
Mona Khalil, her husband and their five children managed to leave Syria in 2013, heading to Turkey before coming to Canada and settling in St. John's. But she doesn't know if her nephews — Mohamed Yaser Alamouri, 9, and Ammar Yaser Alamouri, 24 — were also able to find safety.
Khalil, who works at the Association for New Canadians, is speaking out in hopes of finding help in her new country. The boys' parents are suffering, she said, with no news of what has happened to their sons and no response from official channels. Family members and volunteers are doing what they can, but what is really needed is news of what has happened to Mohamed and Ammar.
"This is a very sad story," Khalil said.
"I cried a lot this month for them, but I need to do something for them now."
Planned to travel to Europe
Mohamad and Ammar Yaser Alamouri planned to travel from Turkey to Greece in an effort to migrate to Europe, Khalil said. The family was struggling in Turkey, where they have lived since leaving Syria, she said. The boys' father, Yaser Alamouri, was unable to work in the country and they were increasingly impoverished. But the father had also been targeted for killing in Syria, she said, so they could not return home either.
"They sacrificed their children for the sake of immigration," she said.
The parents decided to try to send the two boys to Europe in hopes of a better future, Khalil said. In particular, she said, Mohamed is a talented student and his mother and father hoped he could get better schooling elsewhere.
"We can't go back to Syria, and our children couldn't survive in Turkey," their father, Yaser Alamouri, said in a tape the two parents made, translated by Mona Khalil's 17-year-old son, Molham.
A smuggler was paid to provide passage by sea between Turkey and Greece, Khalil said. This is an option many people hoping to reach Europe choose, but one that is dangerous — as of March 29, 311 migrants had drowned in the Mediterranean Sea so far in 2019, according to the International Organization for Migration.
Mohamed and Ammar are believed to have been on the beach in Turkey and were set to leave March 27, Khalil said, but from there the trail is cold.
"Nobody knows whether they left or stayed, kidnapped, drowned. Nobody knows what happened to them," she said.
"They just disappeared."
More than a month without word
The family has not received any word about Mohamed and Ammar since March 27, Khalil said.
The body of one Palestinian man who was in their travel group washed up on the same Turkish beach from which they were set to depart, more than a month after the planned departure date. The Palestinian ambassador notified that man's family of his death, reaching them because his passport was in his pocket, but that is the only information Khalil and her family have about what may have happened to the group Mohamed and Ammar planned to travel with.
Ultimately, the discovery of the body only leaves them with more questions because it seems unusual that he would wash up on that same beach, but weeks after the group was supposed to leave, Khalil said.
"We were told that the sea brings back bodies when they are drowned or have an accident," she said, but that seems like something that should have happened quickly and not more than a month afterward.
"The thing is now, why after a month and a few days, come back to the same spot where they left? This is [a] big ambiguity."
Mohamed and Ammar's parents cannot travel to the beach themselves to learn more, Khalil said, because they are in a different province of Turkey. Restrictions placed on Syrian refugees in the country prevent travel between provinces unless authorization is given because of a child living in another province or a medical need.
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The family is considering all possible scenarios of Mohamed and Ammar's whereabouts. They may have been apprehended by authorities in either Turkey or Greece, Khalil said, and she hopes that arrest or imprisonment records in both countries can be checked for their names. They may not have left Turkey at all, or may have arrived safely in Greece, but they have no proof of either scenario.
Or Mohamed and Ammar may have drowned during the trip, Khalil acknowledged. Even if that's what happened, she said, their parents want to know — the stress of not knowing what happened to their sons has harmed their parents' health significantly, she said.
"This is really tragic and really difficult, but they would be satisfied if somebody tells them that they left and they were drowned at sea, and they get back their bodies to be buried in their country," she said.
Khalil said she and her family are happy to be in St. John's — she and her husband are both working, and their children are attending school. They have found Canadians to be welcoming and concerned for refugees, she said, and she hopes that will motivate them to help her family access the official channels necessary to find out what has happened to Mohamed and Ammar.
"I'm not sleeping well for a month because I'm so much concerned, and I think of them all the time," she said. "I'm a mother myself and I have children the same age, so I can feel how they feel."
She hopes that other people with children of their own can identify, she said, and will put pressure on to help the family learn more.
"We need people's help and sympathy."
With files from Stephen Miller