Iceland review - 2016, Page 38

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After thousands of Icelanders called on their government to resettle more
Syrian refugees in Iceland, the first group arrived in the country in January.
Zoë Robert travels to Akureyri to meet one of the families.
Until now things are great. We
have made a lot of friends and
we hope we can be part of the
society here—but we know that this is
also our responsibility,” says Khattab Al
Mohammad, seated in the living room of
his new home in the North Iceland town
of Akureyri (population 18,000). Khattab,
along with his wife Halima, their six
children and his 67-year-old mother, was
part of a group of 35 Syrians—13 adults
and 22 children—resettled in Iceland
in mid-January. The group was the first
from Syria to arrive in the country as part
of the United Nations Refugee Agency’s
(UNHCR) resettlement program after
the Icelandic government committed in
September 2015 to increasing the num-
ber of quota refugees to be resettled in
Iceland in response to considerable pub-
lic pressure. Prior to that, 13 Syrians were
resettled in Reykjavík in January 2015.
PHOTOS BY PÁLL STEFÁNSSON.
Before the move to Iceland, Khattab and
his family had been living at a refugee
shelter in Lebanon since fleeing Aleppo
in war-torn Syria three years ago.
FROM ALEPPO TO AKUREYRI
The photographer and I visit Khattab
and his family two weeks after their
arrival in Iceland. They rug up in their
winter gear—with six children, aged 2, 6,
Khattab and his family
outside their new home
in Akureyri.