In this edition of “A home far from home”, in which we bring you the stories of people with protected status, we present young Jalil and his two sisters – Sahar and Urut. They fled from Iraq because of the war. First, their father came to Bulgaria with one of their older brothers, then, one by one, the rest of the family followed.

“Here we found peace, we found calm. It is so different here compared to the Arab countries with the endless wars and unceasing explosions. Bulgaria is a nice country with incredible nature but most of all there is peace. We wouldn’t go back to Iraq for good. We just would not be safe there.”

Jalil and his sisters are currently attending the Palestinian school Avicennain Sofia. They dream of graduating 12^thgrade with good grades so as to apply to university. Sahar wants to study graphic design, Urut has a penchant for IT, while Jalil dreams of one day being a policeman.

As all other teenagers the children spend a lot of time on the Internet but the family members are also active volunteers in the events organized by the Council of Refugee Women in Bulgaria connected with the integration of refugees in Bulgarian society.

Here, Muslims are treated much better than they are in the Arab countries. Bulgarians regard Islam in a different way. Here Islam is more genuine, they say.

“In Sofia we havemoved around quite a lot – because we are Arab people are afraid of us. That is a recent thing, we didn’t used to have problems like that. When people find out you are Arab they put a stamp on your back, but we are not bad people. There will always be someone who is a bad person, but that is true of any nation,” say the young people from Iraq we presented in this installment of “A home far from home”.

English version: Milena Daynova