During a meeting of the Local Immigration Partnership in Stratford Friday, Mohamad El Sakka, a Ukrainian refugee who recently arrived in Perth County with his pregnant wife and young daughter, thanked the volunteers and partner agencies from across the region for helping his family and other Ukrainian refugees find a safe home.
For many refugees, the path to a new life in a safe country can be long and filled with setbacks.
For 32-year-old Mohamad El Sakka, who has been displaced as a refugee no fewer than four times, that path has been a lifelong endeavour. A Palestinian, El Sakka was born in Kuwait after his family was forced to move from their home country to escape the Israeli occupation. Soon after, the family was forced out of Kuwait by the Iraqi invasion in 1990 and, after settling in Lebanon, El Sakka and his family were again forced to leave the country as a result of the 2006 Lebanon War.
For the third time in his young life, El Sakka had to resettle in a new country. This time, he came to Ukraine, where he ultimately met his wife, Julia El Sakka, and started a family.
On Friday, just days after he arrived in Perth County, Mohamad El Sakka was introduced to members of the Local Immigration Partnership, an organization comprising Ukrainian- and Polish-speaking volunteer groups, as well as employment and other partner agencies from across the region, that was recently established by the Multicultural Association of Perth-Huron to provide wider supports to Ukrainian refugees who are resettling here.
Mohamad El Sakka told the group that he, his pregnant wife and their two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Yamila El Sakka, had to travel through four European countries before they could find a safe place to stay. At that point, he learned about an emergency visa program that could get his wife and daughter to Canada so Julia El Sakka could safely give birth.
“First, we get a call because his wife is 38 weeks pregnant,” multicultural association executive director Dr. Gezahgn Wordofa said at Friday’s meeting. “She had a visa and she had to come (to Canada) as soon as possible. I talked with my board, I talked with our volunteer co-computers and they said ‘yes’ and we (were able) to billet his wife as soon as possible.”
Yet while Julia and Yamila El Sakka were able to obtain expedited visas, getting the father-to-be to Canada so he could be with his wife in time for the birth of their second daughter was much more difficult.
“It’s not even a passport (that I have), it’s an emergency travel document,” Mohamad El Sakka explained. “Anyone who will see it will get lost because it’s from Lebanon and inside my nationality is Palestinian, and under that (it shows) I was born in Kuwait. So no one can understand it. Each time I was in an airport, they stopped me.”
To make a bad situation worse, Mohamad El Sakka couldn’t access any of his money as a result of Russian cyber attacks on Ukrainian financial institutions. Even when Wordofa tried to wire money through Western Union to help pay for temporary accommodations and food, Mohamad El Sakka said the company wouldn’t accept his emergency travel document as identification because it didn’t recognize Palestine as a country.
“When I arrived here in Canada, I was stressed. Then they called me and Geza (Wordofa) said, ‘Now everything will be OK.’ I don’t know you all, but I know there are a lot of people helping us and helping our people, helping my family. You did a great job that I can never forget. … You saved us. You saved our lives, you saved my little daughter and you even saved my (unborn) baby. If I say thank you, it will be like nothing. … You deserve more than thank you. For many years to come, I will be forever thankful to you. … Without you, we wouldn’t make it here.”
Thanks to the support of volunteers, the multicultural association and other partner agencies with the Local Immigration Partnership, Mohamad El Sakka, who speaks five languages, has a master’s degree in civic planning and was working toward a PhD in architecture when he and his family had to leave Ukraine, said he is already interviewing for jobs in the area.
Wordofa has also offered him a part-time position as a translator with the Local Immigration Partnership so he can help others like him and his family settle in the region.
“Our local immigration partners are working in Huron, Perth, Wellington, Oxford, Middlesex and Bruce (counties). … They are working with newcomers, especially with Ukrainians. We have 43 Ukrainian- and Polish-speaking volunteers who are helping. It’s very hard for us now. Everybody is trying to help the Ukrainians. But how?” Wordofa said.
“(As an organization), we are trying to handle that. We are working through a list of people who are ready to (come). … We have to follow the regulations. We have (housing). We have a lineup (of people ready to come). We have money to buy flights. … This war is not finished. We need patience. … Next week, we have a family of five coming and then we have a mum with two kids (coming) to our area.”