Interview by Ryan Selig ’25 and Vidita Shah ’25.
Hadiya is a Syrian refugee and a wife and mother of two currently living in a refugee camp in the Netherlands. Hadiya was born and raised in Syria where she grew up in a large and loving Kurdish family. As a child Hadiya always enjoyed school where her favorite subject was English. This childhood love of English led Hadiya to study English literature at university in Damascus. Before the Syrian conflict broke out, Hadiya taught English, and as a refugee in Iraqi Kurdistan, she continued to teach. In this excerpt from our two interviews with her, Hadiya describes her journey out of Syria to Iraqi Kurdistan and the events in her life that led to her present settlement in the Netherlands. Her story is marked with the tragedy of cancer and family separation, but despite her challenges she maintains a positive and bright outlook. Moving forward, she hopes to find stability and happiness with her family in the Netherlands and stay connected to her Syrian and Kurdish roots.
Listen to her story, below:
Transcript:
So my name is Hadiya. Hadiya Ahmed. I am from Syria. I was born in Syria. I immigrated to Iraq or Iraqi Kurdistan. I was living there for the last eight years. And I just arrived one month ago to the Netherlands. I am living there in a camp. And I’m married. I have two kids.
So I left Syria, because of many reasons. I just have had my first baby. After giving birth, the doctor told me that I have a virus in my blood. It was in 2013, almost in the beginning of the conflict in Syria. So they told my husband, she should get medication and chemotherapy, and either in Damascus city or Iraqi Kurdistan. But the situation was so bad, there was ISIS, Syrian regime, the opposition, all of them fighting on the road and shooting everyone. And it was far from my city. So that’s why my husband decided to come to Erbil or Iraqi Kurdistan.
I left my daughter in Syria, she was just one week old. And my husband, and my sister accompanied me. I came by ambulance, moving from one hospital to another to the borders. After the medical test, they said that I have leukemia. It is called acute myeloid leukemia, which is a cancer in the blood. So at that time, they said that I should stay a long time. But I just wasn’t conscious, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t walk. So I stayed for four months, for the first time getting the treatment and getting the first chemotherapy. Like after these four months, I recovered a little bit I can say, and my daughter came with her aunt from Syria, I could meet her, but I couldn’t stay with her a long time because I should go back to the hospital.
So it lasted one year, five days with my daughter, 15, 20 days in the hospital. So suffering experience, every pain. My husband was next to me every time, my sisters next to me, encouraging me and helping me. I was living in a camp which make my life difficult, more difficult. So yeah, so this was my journey when I left from Syria to Iraq. You know, after like 11 years of conflict and war and destroying. So, if, like, the worst topic, maybe Syria needs years and years to come back to normal life for the safety, for the economic situation, for everything to resettle. So of course, I would love to go back to Syria, because my heart is still there. My family members are there, my memories, memories are there. But for now, I just need to build a new life here. So I just need to resettle and to maybe relax, to feel comfortable. Then, of course in the future if everything is okay, I would love to go back there. This is what I’m saying now, but I don’t know in the future what will happen.
