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Syrian Refugees In US Fear For Those Left Behind

2020-06-25T08:48:08Z

GwendolynChauvel: Created page with "Syrian refugees in US fear for those left behind By [/home/search.html?s=&authornamef=Afp Afp] Published: 08:13 BST, 25 November 2015 | Updated: 08:14 BST, 25 Novem..."

Syrian refugees in US fear for those left behind By [/home/search.html?s=&authornamef=Afp Afp] Published: 08:13 BST, 25 November 2015 | Updated: 08:14 BST, 25 November 2015 [ ] [ ] [ ] </a> Sitting on a donated couch in her modest Chicago apartment, Safa Mshymish knows she is among the lucky ones: a Syrian refugee welcomed into the United States before the tide of public opinion turned. It hurts, she said, to hear politicians are trying to stop families just like hers from finding a safe haven, branding all Syrians a security threat in the wake of the Paris attacks. "Just like any mother who loves her children and wants to see them sleep peacefully, so do I. Just like any mother wants to feed her children, so do I," she said. Syrian refugee Safa Mshymish sits with her daughter Rama in their apartment in Chicago, Illinois ©Mira Oberman (AFP) They must not realise, she said, that like her these are people forced from their homes -- consumed with worry for the loved ones left behind. This is what she would tell them all, if she could. As her American neighbors prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving with their families on Thursday, Mshymish, 27, longs for a homeland that no longer exists. They had a good life before the war began. They were comfortable, safe and happy, surrounded by family and friends. Her husband went to a couple of demonstrations in the early, peaceful days of the protest movement against President Bashar al-Assad's regime, but mostly stayed out of the intensifying conflict. Until a car full of "thugs" drove up and opened fire as he sat at a cafe with five friends in Homs on October 15, 2011. "I was the only one who survived. Everybody else was killed," Ismil Alrife, [http://allinfootballncricket.mystrikingly.com/blog/safa-baig-pathan allinfootballncricket.mystrikingly.com] 38, told AFP. Watching his friends die on the street was just the beginning, as fear came to shadow their days. Now that Alrife was injured -- the bullets severed the main nerve in his right leg and he needs a cane to walk -- they were afraid he would become a target for the regime, indiscriminate in rounding up potential "trouble-makers." Trying to leave was also dangerous. So they stayed, even as the war intensified, making it impossible for their three children to go to school and difficult to even buy groceries. Then a missile struck their apartment building. As the walls crumbled around them, they flung their children under the bed and prayed. They escaped with their lives, and little else. - Moonlight escape - The family of five joined a steady stream of refugees weaving their way through the war-torn country, reaching the border with Jordan in July 2012. They waited for darkness to fall and walked 40 kilometers (25 miles) though the mountains in hopes of avoiding Syrian patrols. After more than two years in Jordan, they were given clearance to emigrate to the United States, arriving in Chicago during one of its coldest winters ever. The children -- now aged 11, 9, 6 and 20 months -- have had an easier time adjusting to the new language and culture. They are learning English at school and, like generations of immigrants before them, sometimes act as interpreters for their parents. "We feel very happy to be here and be safe, but at the same time it's not easy for anyone to leave home," Mshymish said. The United States has admitted fewer than 2,180 Syrian refugees out of the nearly 4.3 million who have registered with the United Nations since the conflict began in 2011. President Barack Obama pledged to resettle 10,000 more in the next year, but Syrian refugees have become a political football in the wake of the November 13 attacks which killed 130 in Paris. More than half of state governors oppose hosting any more Syrians and the House of Representatives voted to ban refugees from either Syria or Iraq without tougher screening measures -- to prevent jihadists posing as refugees from slipping into the West to stage attacks. - 'Despicable' backlash - Suzanne Akhras Sahloul, director of the Syrian Community Network non-profit group, called the backlash against refugees "despicable" -- coming against a backdrop of anti-Muslim rhetoric from several Republican presidential candidates. "I'm very disappointed in our country," said Sahloul, whose group helps refugees adjust to life in the United States. "What happened to us that we are now closing our doors to people who are escaping terrorism, trauma and death?" Chicago -- one of the nation's largest, most diverse cities -- has welcomed just 18 families of Syrian refugees. Most live within walking distance of the Alrife family in a bustling immigrant neighborhood where shopkeepers speak Arabic and sell the thick, strong coffee that reminds them of home. Abdullah Taha, 44, arrived with his wife and three children in September. The former taxi driver was imprisoned for a month after driving some customers into the wrong neighborhood of Damascus in December 2011. He said he was tortured by the regime while his desperate family, fearing the worst, searched the streets for his body. Taha fled to Lebanon soon after his release, but found life there too "chaotic." He said he was grateful to the kind people who made his family feel welcome in Chicago. But his days are filled with fears for his parents, siblings and all those trapped in Syria. And he struggles to contain his anger when he hears refugees branded as terrorists. "I get very upset when some people or candidates for the US election, they invent anything to use it during the election, anything, and they tarnish our image," he told AFP. "It's not the reality, we're not like this," he said. "I would give my life to them just to prove that those millions of Syrians are innocent and have nothing to do with terrorism." Syrian refugee Ameer Alrife stands in front of his parents and community leaders during a press conference in Chicago, Illinois ©Mira Oberman (AFP) The United States has admitted fewer than 2,180 Syrian refugees out of the nearly 4.3 million who have registered with the United Nations since the conflict began in 2011 ©Mira Oberman (AFP) Supporters of refugees counter-protest an anti-refugee group gathered on the steps of the state capitol in Olympia, Washington on November 20, 2015 ©Jason Redmond (AFP)

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2020-06-24T06:10:46Z

GwendolynChauvel:

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Shock At Zane Gbangbola apos;s Inquest

2020-06-24T03:07:21Z

GwendolynChauvel: Created page with "A pathologist investigating the death of a little boy was not told that levels of deadly cyanide gas were detected in his flooded home, an inquest has been told. Tragic Zan..."

A pathologist investigating the death of a little boy was not told that levels of deadly cyanide gas were detected in his flooded home, an inquest has been told. Tragic Zane Gbangbola, seven, was overcome by toxic fumes as he slept during the early hours of February 8, 2014. His grieving parents believe he was killed by cyanide gas seeping into their house from floodwater coming from a landfill site at the back of their home. Tragic Zane Gbangbola, seven, was overcome by toxic fumes as he slept during the early hours of February 8, 2014 But in bombshell evidence to a coroner, pathologist Safa Al-Sarraj has said he was never told firefighters had detected hydrogen cyanide at the scene. Instead, [http://allinfootballncricket.mystrikingly.com/blog/safa-baig-pathan http://allinfootballncricket.mystrikingly.com/blog/safa-baig-pathan] Prof Al-Sarraj said he was informed by police that a petrol-powered water pump had been seized at the family's home next to the Thames in Chertsey, Surrey, leading him to conclude that Zane had died from carbon monoxide poisoning. Police and public health experts latched on to Prof Al-Sarraj's findings to lay the blame for Zane's death on fumes from the pump hired by his parents to clear floodwater from their basement. But Zane's parents, Kye and Nicole Gbangbola, insist this was impossible because the pump was not in use at the time of the floods. The tragic incident left Mr Gbangbola, 50, a company director, paralysed, which doctors say was caused by hydrogen cyanide gas. RELATED ARTICLES [# Previous] [# 1] [# Next] [/news/article-3671828/Chemical-drums-near-home-boy-killed-poisonous-gas-floods.html 'Chemical drums' found near home of boy killed by poisonous...] [/news/article-3638937/Mother-son-7-died-ill-house-flooded-2014-storms-tells-inquest-death-police-blackmailed-making-statement.html Mother who believes her son, 7, died from cyanide poisoning...] Share this article Share Despite this, Surrey Police pursued a ten-month investigation into the water pump, which was dropped when prosecutors said there was no case to answer. Leslie Thomas QC, a barrister acting for Zane's family, said the pump theory had ‘collapsed like a house of cards' after Prof Al-Sarraj's evidence to the coroner. Prof Al-Sarraj, a leading neuropathologist, said he was brought in to examine Zane's brain after an autopsy by two Home Office pathologists could not establish why he had died. He said he found evidence of ‘toxicity' but did not consider cyanide because he was unaware it was a factor in the case. Grieving Kye Gbangbola (right) and Nicole Lawler (left), the parents of 7-year-old Zane Gbangbola, who died in February 2014, leave the Woking Coroners Court at the end of the first day of the inquest into their son's death ‘Had I been told [about cyanide], I would have made efforts to investigate in a different way and analyse the data in a different way,' he said. ‘I was only given this story [about carbon monoxide]. This is how I reached my conclusions.' Prof Al-Sarraj told the inquest that cyanide and carbon monoxide acted in a similar way on the brain. The five-week inquest into Zane's death has been told of a catalogue of bungled investigations and missed opportunities, including the fact that blood samples from Zane's body and water samples from the home were not analysed until weeks after his death, meaning any traces of cyanide gas would have evaporated. It is unclear why Prof Al-Sarraj was not told about the cyanide. He told the coroner he had been instructed to conduct the autopsy by Professor Rupert Risdon, who had performed the first inconclusive post-mortem examination. Prof Risdon said he had ‘assumed' that Prof Al-Sarraj had been told to look for cyanide poisoning. Surrey senior coroner Richard Travers has adjourned the case and is due to give his verdict in early September. [ ] adverts.addToArray("pos":"inread_player")Advertisement

User:GwendolynChauvel

2020-06-24T03:07:20Z

GwendolynChauvel: Created page with "Rare conjoined twins have been separated at a London hospital in a series of operations taking a total of 55 hours. Two-year-old sisters Safa and [http://allinfootballncric..."

Rare conjoined twins have been separated at a London hospital in a series of operations taking a total of 55 hours. Two-year-old sisters Safa and [http://allinfootballncricket.mystrikingly.com/blog/safa-baig-pathan http://allinfootballncricket.mystrikingly.com/blog/safa-baig-pathan] Marwa Ullah had three major operations to separate their heads at Great Ormond Street. My blog :: [http://allinfootballncricket.mystrikingly.com/blog/safa-baig-pathan http://allinfootballncricket.mystrikingly.com/blog/safa-baig-pathan]