Syrian Refugees

FAMILY WITH 7 CHILDREN TAKES IN ALL 9 SYRIAN REFUGEE CHILDREN WHO LOST MOTHER IN EL CAJON SHOOTING

 

By Miriam Raftery

September 4, 2022 (El Cajon) –  The El Cajon nonprofit License to Freedom has been counseling nine children in a Syrian refugee family traumatized first by war in their homeland, and now by the death of their mother, who was found shot in the family’s home. In an interview with East County Magazine originally aired on KNSJ radio,

Dilkhwaz Ahmed, founder of License to Freedom, provides an update on the children’s situation, also sharing information on the stresses facing refugee families. The  children’s father, Abdulhannan Abdurazaq Al Rawi, has pleaded not guilty to a murder charge.

“It’s so hard,” Ahmed says, when asked how the children, ages 2-17, are doing. “In a situation like that, the community gets together.” She says other Syrian refugees in the community worked to help the children, as did people in the Sudanese community, since the babysitter is from Sudan. “One of their close friends, a family from Syria, decided to take the kids, and they have seven kids,” Ahmed said.  “The wife was best friends with the mom…it’s heartbreaking.”

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HUSBAND ARRESTED FOR KILLING EL CAJON MOTHER OF NINE CHILDREN

 

Update:  The suspect's last name as Al Rawi, not Al Wari. The earlier misspelling was provided by El Cajon Police based on a a translation error. Friends of his have voiced shock at his arrest and doubts about the accusations against him, calling him a good father and pillar of the Syrian community locally who has helped other refugees, 10 News reports.

By Miriam Raftery

August 22, 2022 (El Cajon) -- Abdulhannan Abdurazaq Al Rawi is under arrest for allegedly shooting and killing his wife, 37, in the bedroom of their El Cajon home at 1599 Soma Place. The couple's nine children, ages 2 to 17, were in the home at the time, according to Lieutenant Randy Soulard with EL Cajon Police.

Dilkhwaz Ahmed with License to Freedom, an El Cajon social services agency supporting refugees, posted on Facebook tonight “Please pray for these kids who lost their mom today. Out team of therapists and myself stayed with them all day to make sure they have a safe place to go. If you would like to support them, please let me know. They are refugees from Syria.”


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SYRIAN FAMILY STRUGGLES TO COPE WITH COVID-19

By Kendra Sitton

Photo by Henri Migala:  Asim Al-Abdullah worries about his family’s future
 
July 30, 2020 (El Cajon) - Everyone faces different struggles during the pandemic, such as health, financial or isolation. For a Syrian family of seven living in El Cajon, their primary struggle is psychological. 

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NEW RESEARCH: HIGH LEVELS OF ANXIETY FOUND AMONG SYRIAN REFUGEE CHILDREN

 

Source: American Psychiatric Association

Photo by Rachel Williams: Syrian refugee girls in El Cajon

May 21, 2017 (San Diego) -- The Syria Civil War has exposed millions of civilians to extreme physical and emotional trauma. Anxiety is common among Syrian refugee children, affecting more than four in five children, according to research presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychiatric Association in San Diego.


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EXCLUSIVE : IRC AND SURVIVORS OF TORTURE DIRECTORS SPEAK OUT ON REFUGEE RESTRICTIONS

 

By Miriam Raftery, Editor, East County Magazine

Hear our interview for KNSJ Radio by clicking the audio link

February 1, 2017(San Diego) – To learn the impacts of President Donald Trump’s executive action restricting refugee s’ entry into the United States,  we interviewed International Rescue Committee Executive Director David Murphy and Kathi Anderson, Executive Director at Survivors of Torture.

The order has created “fear for a lot of people” in San Diego, long a welcoming haven for refugees starting with the airlifts of Vietnamese boat people in the 1970s, says Murphy.  San Diego County takes in 3 to 4 percent of  all the refugees accepted into the U.S. each year.

Audio: 

Interview with David Murphy, IRC, and Kathi Anderson, Survivors of Torture on Refugee Restrictions

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THE VOICE OF THE SEVENTH CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS

 

Richard Posner, by William Domnarski (Oxford University Press, New York, NY, 2016, 289 pages).

Book Review by Dennis Moore

January 10, 2017 (San Diego) - Judge Richard Posner is one of the great legal minds of our age, on par with such generation-defining judges as Oliver Wendell Holmes, Learned Hand, and Henry Friendly. A judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and the principal champion of the enormously influential law and economics movement, Posner is also an archetypal public intellectual: he writes provocative, best-selling books, receives frequent media attention, and often engages in high-profile policy debates. He is also a member of an increasingly rare breed – judges who write their own opinions rather than delegating the work to clerks. We therefore have unusually direct access to the workings of his mind and his judicial philosophy.


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LOCAL FAMILES URGENTLY NEEDED TO VOLUNTEER AND MENTOR SYRIAN FAMILIES IN EAST COUNTY

 

 

Hear our interview with Dilkhwaz Ahmed by clicking the audio link.

East County News  Service

December 10,2016 (El Cajon)—In an interview on KNSJ Radio, Dilkhwaz Ahmed with License to Freedom offered an urgent plea for help. Hundreds of Syrian families have just arrived in East County – with 50 to 60 more flooding in each day. 

The refugees fled a humanitarian crisis in their war-torn homeland, relocated here by the U.S. government at the request of the United Nations. Other countries are also offering shelter to refugees. But many who came here have large families, so their modest aid funds are scarcely enough to cover rent and food.  They need help to overcome trauma and learn how to build new lives in America. But there are not nearly enough people or resources to fill the desperate need.

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A REVOLUTION OF STRUGGLE CONTINUES FOR SYRIAN REFUGEES IN EAST COUNTY

 

Fleeing violence in Syria, some fear homelessness in U.S.

Hear our radio interviews with Syrian refugees and those seeking to help them in El Cajon by clicking the audio link.

By Rachel Williams

December 1, 2016 (El Cajon) -- Within the Villas of Embasadora, a motel in El Cajon, Syrian refugees have converted their rooms into makeshift homes where it’s cheaper for families of eight, or eleven to survive, than in San Diego’s public housing where costs have risen sharply.

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Syrian Refugee interviews in El Cajon Dec. 2016

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SYRIAN REFUGEES THANKFUL FOR NEW LIVES IN SAN DIEGO REGION

 

By Miriam Raftery

Photo courtesy of ECM news partner 10 News

November 25, 2016 (San Diego’s East County) – The youngest survivors of Syria’s civil war are a traumatized generation.  In the U.S., 80% of the 10,000 Syrian refugees admitted in 2016 are children—and nearly all have suffered unspeakable trauma. 


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A CALL FOR COMMUNITY INCLUSION OF SYRIAN REFUGEES

 

By Rachel Williams

Photo (left to right): Ramla Sahid, founder and executive director of the Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans; Shadi Martini, senior Syria advisor to the Multifaith Alliance for Syrian Refugees; Dr. Georgette Bennett, President of the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding; David Murphy, former county director for the IRC in Ethiopia; Sana Shtasel, senior advisor to the Multifaith Alliance for Syrian Refugees.

Of the 16,000 Syrian refugees resettled in the U.S. in recent years, not a single one has been tied to terrorism. San Diego has more Syrian refugees than any other U.S. city.

November 22, 2016 (San Diego) – Shadi Martini was manager of a hospital in Aleppo, Syria, when the Assad regime began to prosecute suspects working in opposition. Martini and his coworkers provided undercover aid to the wounded and people suffering.  But in 2012, the secret network was discovered, forcing him to flee the country.

Thereafter he served as an organizing assistant for Syrian refugees in a neighboring nation. Later, he joined the Multifaith Alliance for Syrian refugees in Jordan.

 “What I have witnessed is suffering is not limited to my country,” Martini said during a post-election discussion on refugees held last Thursday in San Diego by the Multifaith Alliance for Syrian Refugees and The Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans.


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HEAR OUR INTERVIEW WITH SDSU PROFESSOR JEFFREY MCILLWAIN, AN EXPERT ON TERRORISM AND REFUGEE ISSUES

 

 

By Miriam Raftery

November 28, 2015 (San Diego) – In the wake of the Paris terror attacks and the Syrian refugee crisis, our East County Magazine show on KNSJ radio interviewed Jeffrey McIllwain, PhD, an SDSU professor with special expertise on national security, humanitarian and refugee issues who brings a thoughtful, multi-faceted approach to these complex issues.

Hear part 1 of our exclusive interview,  in which Dr. McIllwain discusses options for responding how to balance risk vs. humanitarian concerns in America’s response to terrorism and refugee concerns:  https://www.eastcountymagazine.org/sites/eastcountymagazine.org/files/au...

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STATE GOVERNORS SPLIT ON ADMITTING SYRIAN REFUGEES IN U.S.

 

Refugees in Europe, most fleeing ISIS, risk death with winter approaching if not enough places will accept them. But fear of potential terrorism has led some nations to bar entry.

Photo: Refugees marching across Europe arrive in Slovenia; source: Slovenia Ministry of Defense.

By Miriam Raftery

November 16, 2015 (San Diego’s East County) – After Friday's terrorist attacks in Paris, for which the Islamic State (ISIS) has claimed responsibility, President Barack Obama reaffirmed his commitment to admit 10,000 Syrian refugees into the U.S. over the next year.

But governors in half of all states nationwide have reportedly said that they oppose taking any Syrian refugees in their states, or want to postpone admitting them until screen procedures are approved, according to reports by Associated Press, CNN and USA Today.


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U.S. TO ADMIT MORE REFUGEES OVER NEXT TWO YEARS

 

 

By Miriam Raftery

September 12, 2015 (San Diego’s East County) – Today, Secretary of State John Kerry announced the U.S. will raise its cap on refugees from the current level of 70,000 to accept 85,000 next year and 100,000 in 2017. The news comes in response to a growing refugee crisis of people fleeing ISIS in Syria and Iraq, including Christians and other minorities as well as Muslims.

That came as welcome news in El Cajon, where Iraqi-American Christians are celebrating at the Chaldean Festival.


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U.S. BISHOPS CALL ON U.S. AND EUROPE TO HELP SAVE SYRIAN REFUGEES

 

Arabo praises support for relocation of displaced Christians

By Miriam Raftery

Photo: Syrian refugee children at clinic in Jordan, by Russell Watkins, Dept. for International Development

March 6, 2015 (San Diego’s East County ) – Today the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops urged the global community, led by the United States and Europe, to take action to save the lives of 4 million Syrian refugees.


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