Alaa Kaadan is 30 years old, from Damascus, Syria
I was a cosmetologist and came to Denmark in 2014. Here in Denmark I just finished 9th grade. After Christmas vacation I will start 10th grade, and I also work at a local restaurant in town.
My life in Syria before the war was very good. I have two sons and a beautiful house. The last time I saw my children they were 5 and 8 years old. Now they are 8 and 11 years old. When the war started the whole area was destroyed by rockets, and I moved to my mothers house with my two boys. The situation got worse and worse. There was no school for my sons, and every day there were explosions. For that reason I felt that I had to leave. There is no life in Syria for us. One of the rockets exploded in front of the schools gate, and killed many of my sons friends. One day I recorded some soldiers from the Assad regime with the camera on my phone. One of Assads spys saw me doing that. For that they wanted to catch and kill me so I had to escape. I said goodbye to my sons. I thought that when I came to Denmark I could bring my sons to safety. I didn’t want my small children to risk their lives, the journey would be too dangerous for them, so I left alone.
In 2015 I was given resident permit to stay in Denmark. In Denmark there are 3 different conditions to get permit: One way is the political protection, called §7,1. In this way you can apply for family reunification immediately. Another way is the humanitarian protection, §7,2. Here you can apply for family reunification after one year. The third way is a temporary protection, §7,3, that I was given. The Danish immigration services wrote to me and told me that I could apply for family reunification after one year, if my permission to stay was extended. When the first year passed, the law changed, so I had to wait for three years to apply. In the meantime my sons have both become very ill. They are not growing as they should because of malnutrition and psychological problems. I have the certificates from their doctor to prove it, but the Danish authorities have ignored that.
When I got the reply from immigration services that I had to wait for three years, I was devastated. I couldn’t eat, sleep or talk to anyone for two months. I didn’t even leave my apartment.
I can go to school in Denmark and have to live my life while waiting, but I cant focus on scool. Sometimes I sit in class, but I cant hear what the teacher says, because I am so sad. I am very happy living here in Denmark because I have been able to start a new life and learn Danish. I want my children to have that opportunity too. If I go back to Syria there is no life for me. If the police see me or catch me, my life will be over. The Syrian police is not like the Danish police. Once they caught my fathers friend in Syria, and after three days he died. We don’t know how he died, but the police killed him.
I want to ask why certain parties in the Danish parliament want to treat us like this? We are human. We are not animals. All we want is safety. Would you leave your children behind if there was no problems in your country? We already escaped from the war, why are we treated like this? Since I left my home 10 members of my family have been killed.