Saad Maida was completing his masters in maternal and reproductive sciences at the University of Glasgow when he realised returning to his home country was no longer an option: “I could not go back to Syria,” he says. “I’m a Christian, and by that time the three closest cities to my hometown were Islamic State strongholds.”
Maida applied for asylum in the UK in 2013. “I had a conscientious objection – I didn’t want to be involved in any side of the armed conflict. And just the remote possibility of being forced to work in a military hospital on [either] side meant a direct risk to my life.” In 2014 he was given refugee status. But although he practised as an obstetrician in Hasakah in north-east Syria, he faced a long road to be able to practise as a doctor in the UK.
