Jordan: When ten minutes turn into ten years

It doesn’t take a physicist to know that time is really relative, and that ten years can feel like ten minutes, while ten minutes can be as slow as ten years.
This is how Turki Al-Naimi, a Syrian refugee in Jordan, felt on Saturday 29 April, 2023, when he met his 13-year-old daughter Hala after ten years of separation.

10 years prior to this reunion

Turki was separated from his then three-year-old daughter upon the outbreak of the conflict in Syria. Turki agreed at that time with his brother that he would go to Jordan and that his brother would join him later. This ten-minute dialogue changed the fate of Turki and his family, as his brother died in Syria before he could take refuge in Jordan, leaving Hala with his wife, while her father and siblings became refugees in Jordan.

9 years before the reunion

Hala went with her uncle’s wife to Turkey after the conflict in Syria became more heated, where there was no news from her for around two months.

During those two months, Turki tasted the bitterness of not knowing the destiny of his daughter. But after sinking in despair, his sadness was transformed to joy and his world became bright once more after he thought he would never see his daughter again, when after his persistent search, he found out that his daughter was living with her uncle [on her mother’s side]; hence, communication was restored between them.

5 years prior to the reunion

Turki resorted to the ICRC delegation in Jordan to initiate a family reunion procedure in cooperation with the Turkish Red Crescent Society (Kizilay), the Jordan Red Crescent Society, and the UNHCR.
And so, hope began to find its way to Turki’s soul. But again, the circumstances worked against them and delayed their reunion; Covid pandemic with all its repercussions stood between them. And when restrictions were eased and it became possible again for the reunion to happen, the earthquake that hit Turkey created a new obstacle for them. Turki and his mother (Hala’s grandmother) never stopped praying day and night, while the RCRC Movement employees were doing their best to secure the reunion.

Two weeks before the reunion

Hala’s brother and three sisters were waiting impatiently for her return; Hala was their youngest sister and the apple of their eye who was taken away from them by the conflict, and with her they lost a large part of their childhood. Hala’s grandmother on her part used to say: “all I want is to see her before I die”.

On the day of the reunion

Turki and his family could not sleep at all and were busy preparing to receive Hala after her long absence. They decorated the house, prepared food, and waited for her arrival as if they were receiving guests.
Turki set off from his home in Mafraq to the airport, accompanied by the ICRC staff; at the same time Hala was escorted by the Turkish Red Crescent staff to the airport as well, to begin another kind of waiting journey.

One hour before the reunion

the minutes pass heavily like years on Turki’s chest. But the waiting would transform from the most poignant moment into the most joyous one, because he knew that what was coming was certainly more beautiful.
Usually, people would try to occupy themselves with various things while waiting, like looking into the mirror in the lift to pass the time, or playing with the phone until they reach their destination, and so was the case with Turki, where he was watching the movement of planes and the flight screens, hoping that time would jump forward for just one hour, to the minute when Hala’s plane finally makes its landing in Jordan.

The long-awaited moment

Now… “my dream has become a reality”, said Turki after finally meeting his daughter and after a ten-year waiting journey has ended. Hala returned to her father’s embrace, and with her came back his laughter, though accompanied by tears.

Waiting can surely place a huge burden on us, and the longer we wait, the more we long to achieve what we have been waiting for; we wait for a better reality, for better chances, for a happier future, and for realizing our dreams. We wait to be with our loved ones, even if after a while. Turki adds: “During that long period of waiting, I considered that my rosary was cut off as long as Hala was not with me, but now my rosary beads are complete”.

The case of Hala the little girl represents thousands of Syrian families separated from their loved ones by the armed conflict, as after more than 10 years of conflict in Syria, tens of thousands of people went missing, and a countless number of families and communities are still seeking information about their missing loved ones and struggling with the extensive repercussions of having a missing family member on their personal lives. At the international level, the ICRC and the National Societies have registered around 25,000 cases of missing persons or people separated from their families as a result of the conflict in Syria since 2011.

In 2022, the ICRC in Jordan, in cooperation with the Jordan Red Crescent Society, received around 3,000 Tracing requests, without any nationality-based discrimination, concerning the disappearance of relatives in Syria.