Wafaa Tabra, 33 years old: “I used to be a fashion designer in Syria. I studied sewing and fashion design at the Mamoun International Center in Damascus. Most of all, I loved making wedding dresses.”

“Then the war came. It destroyed everything. My husband left our home eleven months ago. I haven’t seen him since. He managed to reach Germany. I hoped to join him via the reunification program, but it was taking too long. Then, my children’s school was destroyed. My brother died in a bombing, and friends and relatives were killed. We lived in constant fear. Staying in Syria was too dangerous. Maybe I could have endured it, but they couldn’t [her children]. I decided I had to leave.”

“I’ve been in Greece for two months. We slept in a small tent in a gas station near Idomeni. For weeks, we hoped the border would open. Then, a month ago, we moved to another camp. We have a large tent to ourselves now. We draw, paint and play. Art helps us to forget our difficulties. But my children miss their father.”

“ Now, I dream. I dream of continuing my education, of making dresses again. I dream of my children returning to school. Most of all, I dream of making my family whole again.”

In a refugee camp in northern Greece, Wafaa and her three children, aged 3 to 15, are making paper lanterns out of cardboard boxes for Ramadan.

The 33-year-old fashion designer fled her hometown of Aleppo, Syria, in February 2016. She had hoped to join her husband in Germany, who left their war-torn home one year ago. But her family’s flight from war came to a halt in Greece, after countries along the Balkans route tightened borders in March.

Wafaa and her three children spent six weeks sleeping in a small tent, pitched in a petrol station near the Greek border village of Idomeni. They waited for weeks, hoping they would eventually be allowed northwards. Wafaa was desperate to find somewhere secure for her children. Then, about a month ago, they moved to a new refugee site in the area of Lagkadikia, near the city of Thessaloniki in northern Greece.

Wafaa says she will apply for family reunification. Now she and her children can only wait for an appointment with the Greek asylum service.

Written by Stella Nanou
Video by Vania B. Turner

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