THUNDER BAY – In the time it took to fetch a glass of water, the Aboodi family became convinced they had no other choice but to flee their homes in Iraq.
"He was standing outside the house with his friend,” recalls Sahar Aboodi, speaking about her son in 2007 when the family lived in their Iraqi home city of Basra. “By chance he came in to get water or something and when he came out we saw that his friend was kidnapped.”
The situation in the city of more than 400,000 had only gotten worse since the war in 2003. The near kidnapping of her son led the mechanical engineer and marine captain to take her family of four on a 24-hour drive to Syria in 2007 just two days after the incident.
Sahar retold her family’s story as she sat at the Thunder Bay Multicultural Association Friday afternoon.
Iraq had become a place where anything could happen at any time. As Christians, the family was forced to worship in private, sometimes holding mass in their basement, out of fear.
"It's the future. We don't know the future, what will happen tomorrow we don't know. This is the problem," she said.
"For this reason we couldn't live there anymore. We weren't safe."
The family rented a house and settled in Aleppo, Syria. They stayed there, trying unsuccessfully to get to North America.
But conflict would again force the family to pick up and find safety elsewhere. After Syria erupted into civil war, the family fled to a relatively safer Northern region of Iraq.
In 2014, after several years of navigating the Canadian bureaucracy, the family landed themselves in Thunder Bay thanks to a sponsorship through St. Anthony's Parish.
"Thank God for everything," she said. "We were welcome from the first day we arrived here."
Getting to Canada as a refugee isn't easy. But leaving everything you know and love behind isn't either, she added.
"When any person wants to leave his country it's not easy. It means that they suffer a lot," Sahar said.
"His country, his culture his roots, his home, everything. It's not easy for people to come to Canada. It means they are suffering from that. Our whole life is gone. Everything is lost."
The Aboodis have started a new life in the year they've been in Thunder Bay. Sahar said she's been trying to find work in her field as a mechanical engineer but so far she's working retail. Her daughter, 24, works as a cashier while going to Confederation College while her son, 23, works at a tire shop while upgrading his English.
He's hoping to start school to be an engineer soon. Refugees coming to Canada just want to have a place where they feel safe, free to live and work she said.
"I came here for the sake of my children."
