Mohamad Ayham kandan is 33 years old form Damascus, Syria.
I came to Denmark in 2014. In Syria I was a painter and lived there with my wife and baby daughter. Here I just finished language school and I work as a busdriver. Before the war I lived a very happy life. When the war just began our lives changed and became stressful. We didn’t think the war would last, we thought the war would be over soon. The war started in 2011, and I was still working. In 2012, there was no work for me anymore. The building where I worked was destroyed. Then I found another job, but there was another problem with that too, because the building was placed in the middle of the conflict between the Assad regime, the Syrian Free Army and ISIS.
The Assad regime wanted me to join their army. For that reason I had to escape from Syria. I escaped to Lebanon, then Turkey, and to Greece. From Greece I flew to Copenhagen. After six months I was granted political asylum. At first it was difficult in Denmark because I didn’t speak the language. I found it very difficult to communicate with society. I started at language school to learn Danish. Three days a week I went there, and two days a week I met at the integration center. I did this for one year. After that I started working at Raddison hotel as a painter. I worked there for six months in løntilskud. I went to school in the evening too.
I wanted to apply for family reunification to bring my parents who are ill here. They live in Damascus. After me, my brother and sister fled to Denmark, there is no one to care for my parents. When I applied for reunification I supplied the authorities with all information on my fathers illness. He had his kidney removed due to cancer. He also had an operation on his prostate. After one year, he went through open heart surgery. But, my application was rejected. So me and my siblings send money to my parents every month for them to survive. Every month my father has to go to a doctor to be checked. He is seriously ill, and there is no help for him. I have complained about the rejection from immigration services but I was rejected again. There is no humanity.
Dublin Core: Language: en Subject: a million stories, denmark, syria, refugee, family reunification