Jordan: When ten minutes turn into ten years

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.