Refugee family separated for 10 years finally reunited in Glasgow

A mother living in Glasgow has been finally reunited with her surviving family from war-torn Sudan after 10 years apart.

Kaltouma Ibrahim said she was "happy beyond words" that a campaign led by the Church of Scotland resulted in her husband and two teenage children being granted permission to stay in the UK.

Husband, Hassan, and children, Nasir, 19, and Awadia, 16, arrived in Glasgow recently and are now settling into their new home and rebuilding their lives.

The happy ending brings to a close a deeply distressing and harrowing chapter in the family's story as Mrs Ibrahim and her husband lost three children as a consequence of conflict in Sudan.

The refugee, who was granted leave to remain in 2019 giving her the right to live and work in the UK, is a valued member of the Gorbals Parish Church community.

She hosted a special celebratory lunch in the sanctuary on Sunday to thank the congregation and wider community for all their support.

Mrs Ibrahim, 51, said: "I am very happy to have been finally reunited with my family after so many years apart and they are now safe living with me in Glasgow.

"I am very grateful and thankful to all the people who have helped me in so many ways to make this happen and we can finally start a new chapter in our lives."

Speaking on behalf of herself and her brother, Awadia said: "We are both very happy to be reunited with our mother and be together again after so many years.

"We feel very safe in Glasgow, we like the city very much, especially Glasgow Green, and all the people we have met so far have been very friendly, supportive and welcoming."

Tears of happiness

The pair enrolled in an English as a second language course at Cardonald College this week and Awadia is hopeful she will get a place at Shawlands Academy to continue her education.

Mrs Ibrahim was born and raised in Chad – a former French colony - and met her Sudanese husband there but the couple were forced to flee the country after his life was repeatedly threatened.

They moved to neighbouring Sudan but civil war forced the family to escape for their lives in 2014 and they travelled to Libya, where they secured passage on a boat bound for Italy across the Mediterranean Sea.

Tragically it sank shortly after departure and two of the couple's children, Mohammed, 6, and Faisal, 4, drowned.

The survivors reached the shore and Mrs Ibrahim was separated from her husband and three surviving children after she was taken to hospital for treatment.

She searched for them after she was discharged but was unable to find them.

Eventually Mrs Ibrahim was forced to give up and returned to Chad and her husband and the children managed to make it back to Khartoum, the Sudanese capital.

She thought she would be safe in Chad but the country is terrorised by Boko Harum, a violent Islamist militant group, and she was beaten and tortured by people looking for her husband.

Friends paid for her to escape and she managed to get to France by lorry and eventually to London in December, 2016 and claimed asylum.

Mrs Ibrahim moved to Glasgow the following year and secured refugee status and a residence permit in 2019.

With the help of the Red Cross, Mrs Ibrahim managed to track down her now 73-year-old husband and teenage children in Khartoum and over the years they had sporadic contact via WhatsApp when the internet was working.

Mrs Ibrahim plays an active volunteer role at Gorbals Parish Church, including the weekly Community Kitchen project and lives locally in social housing.

She is currently studying at Anniesland College to improve her English and works part-time with disabled children for Glasgow City Council.

Catriona Milligan, Community Development Worker at Gorbals Parish Church, first met Mrs Ibrahim five years ago and has supported her every step of the way in her fight to be reunited with her family.

The refugee applied to bring her family to live with her under the UK Government policy on family reunion.

Her lawyer submitted paperwork to the Home Office approximately two years ago but a decision was only made after the Church first publicly highlighted the family's plight in December last year.

Tragically, the couple's 13-year-old daughter Safa, was killed in a rocket attack in Khartoum while they were waiting the outcome of the family reunion visa application.

Former SNP MP for Glasgow Central Alison Thewliss had already taken up the family's case with the Home Office and after the campaign was launched, she redoubled her efforts and raised the case on the floor of the House of Commons.

Paul Sweeney, a Glasgow list Labour MSP, raised the family's plight in the Scottish Parliament during a debate on asylum policy and persuaded the Scottish Government to make representations to the UK Government.

Trapped in Egypt

Shortly after the campaign was launched, the Home Office issued family reunion visas to the family but they were unable to collect them from the British Embassy in Khartoum because it is closed due to the civil war.

The family were told they had to travel to Egypt to pick up their passports and visas from the British Embassy in Cairo.

They were given letters explaining the situation from the Home Office to present to officials at the Egyptian land border to enable them to enter the country.

They were allowed to pass and reached the British Embassy and picked up their travel documents.

Gorbals Parish Church and the wider local community donated money to buy the family airfares to Glasgow and the Church asked the Saint Andrew's Refugee Service in Cairo to assist them while they waited to leave.

They were scheduled to fly to Glasgow at the end of the March but Egyptian immigration officials at the airport refused to let them leave because they did not have exit visas.

It was feared it could take many months to acquire the paperwork because the process was complicated by the fact the family entered the country without passports.

The Church urged the British Ambassador to Egypt, Gareth Bayley, to step in and help and he and his team made the case a priority, eventually persuading the Egyptian government to let the family depart.

Throughout this uncertain time, the family continued to be assisted by the Saint Andrew's Refugee Service and they are deeply grateful for the support.

They arrived in Glasgow at the end of May and have taken some time to get reacquainted with each other and settle into their new home in the Gorbals.

Civil war

Sudan became independent of the UK in 1956 and since then the country has been gripped by civil war for most of the intervening years.

The latest war broke out in April 2023 when the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) started fighting around Khartoum and the Darfur region.

Thousands of people have died and millions have been displaced as they flee to what they hope is relative safety.

Despite its historical links to the UK, there is no safe and legal route for Sudanese people to seek safety here.

There are more displaced people in the world today than at any other point in history and the Bible is clear in its expression of God's loving concern for the stranger and refugee.

The Church cries out for peace and justice on behalf of those fleeing such situations as refugees, to offer aid to human need and to call for reconciliation and human rights to halt this crisis of forced displacement.

Although Mrs Ibrahim is part of the Gorbals Parish Church community and it is hoped her husband and children will be involved too, they are Muslims.

That is a moot point for the congregation, however, as the Christian faith teaches that giving as well as receiving hospitality is a gift that enriches us all and the Church works closely with interfaith and ecumenical partners.

Jesus said "When I was a stranger, you welcomed me."

Very Rev David Lunan, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland 2008-2009, led worship at Gorbals Parish Church on Sunday.

Addressing Mrs Ibrahim and her two children, he said: "We welcome you here to church, to this community, to the Gorbals, to Glasgow and to Scotland and hope you will find yourselves at home here.

"We are very grateful to you for providing this feast for us today and it is your very generous way of showing your gratitude to everyone who helped to bring your family together.

"We all recognise that we do not have a clue about the difficulties and sadness you have come through over many years.

"I want to express my thanks to everyone who helped to make this reunion possible.

"People who donated money, those who prayed, and people unknown to us in Scotland, England, Sudan and Egypt who helped to make this dream come true.

"But especially Catriona Milligan whose contribution was crucial to all of this and none of it could have happened without her diligence, perseverance, optimism and prayer."

A welcoming congregation

Mrs Milligan said she is delighted that the campaign had a happy ending.

"I feel humbled, moved, overjoyed and relieved because there were times when we wondered if we were ever going to be able to reunite them," she added.

"It is only emerging now how difficult the family's journey was despite all our efforts but it was all worth it just to see them together again after 10 years.

"Kaltouma is a different person now to the one I first met five years ago and that is just lovely to see.

"Decency, love, prayer and determination, all of these things came together and the fight to reunite Kaltouma with her family pulled us together as a congregation and as a wider community.

"We have always prided ourselves as a welcoming congregation and this situation tested that and proved that these are not just words.

"Kaltouma is loved and members of the wider community would regularly come to the church and ask her how she was doing and give her a hug.

"People dug deep to donate money for the airfares and I noticed people who I know do not have much money quietly slipping some to Kaltouma to help her and that was very moving.

"The ripple effects of the campaign to reunite the family will last for a long time to come in the Gorbals."

Love triumphs

Mr Sweeney attended the lunch to extend his best wishes to the family for the future.

He said: "It was humbling to join the family and parishioners here today to see the love and solidarity that everyone feels for them and what they feel for each other.

"If a lesson can be told to the wider community it is that love can triumph over hate, ignorance and bigotry.

"It has been a privilege to play a small part in trying to reunite the family in Glasgow.

"They have great spirit and it is lovely to see them doing so well and I wish them all the best for the future."