Esther and Zion’s Family Refugee Story
Parishioners Esther and Zion arrived in Canada in May 2022 as Syrian Kurdish refugees. They joined our parish and went through RCIA and came into the Catholic Church at Easter 2023.
Zion’s mother and sister are also Syrian Kurdish refugees who remain displaced in Turkey. As part of our parish’s social justice efforts, we are sponsoring their immigration application for their resettlement in Vancouver as privately sponsored refugees from Turkey.
As refugee women, they have endured over 13 years of civil war, sectarian violence, and forced displacement, and have been separated from Esther and Zion since 2013.
By 2014, advancing, barbaric attacks by the Islamic State on their Kurdish home city of Kobani (“Siege of Kobani”) forced them to flee on foot north to Turkey. Their home and most of their city was destroyed. They lost everything. In Turkey, they are registered as Syrian refugees.
Having lost their possessions and property in Syria and lacking the legal status and documentation to travel, combined with growing xenophobia against refugees, their opportunities for employment and therefore some safety and stability are very limited.
They are unable to return to their area of Syria due to continuous military assaults there, the on-going Syrian Civil War, and the practices of persecution and human rights abuses by the Syrian government and other warring groups against returning refugees.
Their resettlement and family reunification in Canada is both their hope and our parish’s goal.
The Goal
To support and sponsor the application process.
This also includes the requirement to raise $75,000 to sponsor both Zion’s mother’s and sister’s resettlement in Canada.
If you would like to get involved please contact us: [email protected]
