Refugee hears mother's voice again - Winnipeg FreePress

Tue Sep 18 2007
By Carol Sanders
AFTER losing her home, her family, her country and her adolescence to civil war 17 years ago, a Somali refugee has found her mother thanks to a couple of Red Cross volunteers in Winnipeg.
At a news conference Monday, Ayaan Ahmed Jama recalled the phone call this summer she made to the mother whose voice she hadn't heard in many years.

"She asked me 'Who are you?' and I said 'It's your daughter, Ayaan,' " Jama said through an interpreter.

"She cried. I cried. I said 'I thought you were dead.'"

Now 28 and a mother of two, Jama was 11 years old when her village was attacked. She fled without her parents or family and didn't know if any of them had survived. She ended up in a refugee camp near the Kenya-Somali border. She spent close to a decade in the camp before coming to Canada. She was in Winnipeg for close to five years when she approached the Red Cross for help.

Restoring Family Links caseworkers Elizabeth Gehman and Joanne Klumper first met Jama last November. They gathered her information and got in touch with the Red Cross and Red Crescent's 185 societies. They found out her mother and brother were alive and arranged for Jama to speak with them by phone. Jama said she hopes to because Somalia is still a dangerous place.

"We're all going to die if I go back there," said Jama. "It's better if they come here."

The Canadian government advises against all travel to Somalia. Last December, the Transitional Federal Government (TFG), supported by the Ethiopian military, launched an offensive against the Union of Islamic Courts, who had controlled much of south-central Somalia. Since that time, there have been guerilla-style mortar and grenade attacks against TFG and Ethiopian targets almost daily, mainly in Mogadishu, and civilian casualties are not uncommon.

According to Foreign Affairs, the whole country is dangerous and unpredictable. Travellers are at risk of kidnapping, murder or arrest without notice or apparent cause. There is no guarantee of a fair trial or that local courts will respect diplomatic or United Nations immunities.
"It's suicide if I go there," said Jama, who had nightmares for years after the attack on her village.

Now she is raising her sons named Kofi Annan, 4, and Abdukani, three months, and declined to comment about their father.

"I dream that they'll become good citizens, that they have a good life." She said she tries to smile and act happy for her kids' sake.

"If they're happy, I'm happy."

For the volunteers like Gehman and Klumper, being able to help is a joy in itself. "It's so fulfilling," said Klumper. "This is one of the best volunteer jobs I've ever had." When there is bad news to share -- that the person they were trying to find is dead -- the women deliver it personally. The reaction they get is often sadness but rarely despair.

"Most of them are just so thankful to be here in Canada," said Gehman. Jama found her mother but learned her father and two siblings had died in the civil war.

Still, said Gehman: "She can sleep and her children are safe."

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca