Hiba was 12 years old and living in Mogadishu when her life was turned on its head by the civil war raging in Somalia. “My father was killed and I had to flee with my half-sister who was 30 and we travelled to Ethiopia,” she said. “There were about 40 of us in a lorry. It took us two weeks and I saw some terrible things along the way. There was lots of stop and go, lots of us having to hide from danger, travelling only at night and having to keep calm - and I saw a lot of dead people lying on the ground.”
Five years later, when Hiba’s older half-brother - who was living in London - got her a visa to the UK, her life was severely disrupted again. “My first impressions of England were that it was cold and I felt frightened,” she said. “My half-brother left London soon after and so I knew nobody. I was 17 and alone. My father was dead, my mother was living somewhere unknown, I spoke no English, I had to move in with distant relatives I barely knew - I felt very, very alone.”
