Iceland review - 2016, Qupperneq 43

ICELAND REVIEW 41
me the drone video of the destruction in
Homs, Syria’s third largest city, which
was published online in early February.
He received news a couple of years ago
that a rocket hit their home in Aleppo,
causing damage to part of the unoccu-
pied house. Today, he has no idea wheth-
er it’s still standing. As we watch the
video from Homs, he tells me that while
he’s immensely grateful for the help he
has received in relocating to Iceland—he
asks me several times to ensure that his
family’s gratitude towards the people and
municipality of Akureyri, the Red Cross
and volunteer support families is reflect-
ed in this article—he’s angry that more
international pressure isn’t being placed
on President Assad. “I’m not a politician,
but the source of the problem is not the
refugees. You’ve spent a lot of time and
money helping refugees—this is very
good—but that’s not the problem. Why
don’t people talk about the dictator?
People are being killed. Everyone talks
about the refugees. Look, we all want
to go back, but how can we do that?”
Like many other Syrians living in exile,
Khattab hopes one day to return to Syria.
In the meantime, the new arrivals
hope to make a home in Iceland and
work towards the dreams they’ve had to
put on hold for so many years. “Before,
when we were in Syria, I told my son he
could be a doctor—education was free.
We had big dreams for the family, but
we have had to change them. Now we
have small dreams. We moved here and
we continue to hold onto those small
dreams. We hope to have education for
our children and work for me to support
the family. Tomorrow the children will
begin school. I’m looking for work. Our
dreams are so small and we’ve almost
reached them.” *
Zoë Robert works with asylum seekers
as a Red Cross volunteer.
SYRIANS
Minister of Social
Affairs (center) Eygló
Harðardóttir greets the
new arrivals.
Some of the children in the group wait as the families load their luggage onto the buses at Keflavík Airport.