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Refugees say they are searching for ways to bring relatives here
BY JUAN ANTONIO LIZAMA
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Saturday, December 30, 2006 |
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When a war to overthrow a dictatorial regime started in 1991, a clan of armed men attacked her town, Jilib. They raped women, killed people and took the family's farmland. The family ran for their lives in all directions. That was the last night she saw her father, Abdulle said in her Henrico County apartment.
"We don't know whether he is alive or dead," she said.
Abdulle, 27, has been living in the apartment for two years with her four children; her husband, Ibrahim Difow; and mother, Fadumo Mohamed.
With the continuing fighting in Somalia, Abdulle and her family worry about her grandparents and uncles who are there. She also has two sisters and a brother in Dadaab Refugee Camp in Kenya, where pillaging and killing are common, she said. The family is trying to find a way to get the siblings to the United States.
"Every day they fight and kill people," she said of the warring factions in Somalia. "We want them to stop fighting. Our family is there."
Abdulle's family and her mother, who were staying at Kukuma Refugee Camp in Kenya, were allowed to come to Richmond two years ago through the Virginia Council of Churches' Refugee Resettlement Program.
She is working as a hotel housekeeper, and her husband works in a plastic factory. It is tough to pay the bills, she said, but they can sleep through the night without fear of being attacked.
Abdulle translated for her mother, who said she liked living here.
"I love Virginia, I love America."
John Javed, the Refugee Resettlement Program's coordinator, said that in five years, about 500 Somali refugees have come through the program.
Henrico resident Daud Mohamed, 33, came through the program six years ago. He worries about his parents, three sisters and two brothers who live in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, and in Marka, about 60 miles south.
The family went to Marka after a militia attacked Mogadishu, Mohamed said. They lived in relative peace for about a year until a militia attacked Marka. The family scattered. He went to Egypt and then came to Richmond as a refugee. It took awhile for him to find out that his family was alive in Marka, he said.
"They are in danger," he said. "I'm seeking help to bring them now."