Refugee living in Glasgow reunited with family from Sudan after ten years apart

A mother living in Glasgow has been reunited with her remaining family from war-torn Sudan after after a decade apart.

Kaltouma Ibrahim, who lost three children during conflict in her country, was granted leave to remain in 2019, giving her the right to live and work in the UK.

Last year the PA news agency reported how Mrs Ibrahim had not seen her husband Hassan, son Nasir or daughter Awadia since they were separated ten years ago.

At the time she had been waiting for 15 months for a decision from the Home Office on whether she could bring her remaining family from Sudan to Scotland.

Her husband and two children have since been granted permission to live in the UK and moved to Glasgow to be together again after a campaign led by the Church of Scotland.

Mrs Ibrahim, 51, said: “I am very happy to have been finally reunited with my family after so many years apart and they are now safe living with me in Glasgow.

“I am very grateful and thankful to all the people who have helped me in so many ways to make this happen and we can finally start a new chapter in our lives.”

Speaking on behalf of herself and her brother, Awadia, 16, said: “We are both very happy to be reunited with our mother and be together again after so many years.

“We feel very safe in Glasgow, we like the city very much, especially Glasgow Green, and all the people we have met so far have been very friendly, supportive and welcoming.”

Mrs Ibrahim was born and raised in Chad, where she met her Sudanese husband, but the couple were forced to flee the country after his life was repeatedly threatened.

They moved to neighbouring Sudan but civil war forced the family to move again to Libya in 2014, where they secured passage on a boat bound for Italy across the Mediterranean Sea.

The vessel sank shortly after departure and two of the couple’s young children, aged four and six, drowned.

The survivors reached shore but Mrs Ibrahim became separated from her husband and three surviving children after she was taken to hospital in Libya.

She was unable to find them after she was discharged and eventually returned to Chad, where she thought she would be safe.

The country was then terrorised by Boko Haram, the Islamist militant group, and Mrs Ibrahim was beaten and tortured by people looking for her husband.

Friends paid for her to escape to France and then London in 2016 to claim asylum. She moved to Glasgow the following year and secured refugee status and a residence permit in 2019.

Mrs Ibrahim finally managed to track down her husband and teenage children in Khartoum, but daughter Safa, 13, died from wounds sustained in a rocket attack near her home in the city last year.

The family were finally reunited in May this year. Nasir and Awadia have since enrolled in an English course at Cardonald College and Awadia hopes to attend Shawlands Academy in the future.

Mrs Ibrahim continues to work part-time with disabled children for Glasgow City Council and do voluntary work at Gorbals Parish Church, whose members donated money to help pay for her family’s flight to Glasgow.

Catriona Milligan, a community development worker at the church, said: “I feel humbled, moved, overjoyed and relieved because there were times when we wondered if we were ever going to be able to reunite them.

“It is only emerging now how difficult the family’s journey was despite all our efforts but it was all worth it just to see them together again after 10 years.

“Kaltouma is a different person now to the one I first met five years ago and that is just lovely to see.

“Decency, love, prayer and determination – all of these things came together and the fight to reunite Kaltouma with her family pulled us together as a congregation and as a wider community.

“We have always prided ourselves as a welcoming congregation and this situation tested that and proved that these are not just words.

“Kaltouma is loved and members of the wider community would regularly come to the church and ask her how she was doing and give her a hug.

“People dug deep to donate money for the air fares and I noticed people who I know do not have much money quietly slipping some to Kaltouma to help her and that was very moving.

“The ripple effects of the campaign to reunite the family will last for a long time to come in the Gorbals.”