Four years ago, 47-year-old Abier was at the lowest point in her life. She had made the heartbreaking decision to flee her home in Sudan, leaving her four children in the care of their grandmother, while she sought safety and asylum in the UK. Abier’s children had lost contact with their father years earlier, leaving her as the sole parent. She faced an impossible situation, and she had little choice.
In early 2020 she faced political persecution, she was detained and held for a week. On her release, she fled to find safety in the UK, fearful of what would happen if she stayed at home. Her hope was to find safety and a future but it came at a huge cost – her family.
“In the beginning, I was just silent,” says Abier. “I couldn’t sleep. My health was very poor. I didn’t know what would happen to me, whether my request would be accepted or rejected; if I would see my children again. It was a very tough period – everything was uncertain.” On arrival in March 2020, Abier applied for asylum and was moved around the country until finally settling in Bristol two months later.
Over the next 12 months, while her application was being processed, Abier tried to piece together the beginnings of a new life. She got support from local groups and organisations who help asylum seekers with essentials, but the thing she needed most – her children – was not an option. It was only when she was granted refugee status in June 2021 that she could apply for her children to join her here in the UK.
Abier with Mazin and Khalid at home in Bristol; Abier and Lydia Cawthorne-Luff. Photographs: Nina Raingold/British Red Cross
At this point, Abier started getting help to apply for her youngest children. Once the news came through that they were allowed to join her in Bristol, the British Red Cross helped with their flights. It had been two years since Abier had seen Aseel and Monzir, then 11 and 15. Abier recalls her huge relief – “I felt like my life was starting to come back” – but she was bereft at being without her two older sons.
According to the UK’s family reunion rules, Abier would need to apply on exceptional grounds to be reunited with Mazin and Khalid, because they were over 18. “For me, family is the most important thing in the world. Without family, there is no life,” says Abier, who was distraught at the thought of what might happen to them back in Sudan.
With very little money and a huge language barrier, Abier stood little chance of mounting a legal case for them to be reunited. But in 2022, Abier met Lydia Cawthorne-Luff, a Bristol-based family reunion case worker for the British Red Cross’s Repair (Reunion Pathways for Integration) project. Her specialism is getting displaced families back together, along with all the complexity that process can involve.
Photograph: Nina Raingold/British Red Cross
“Once people get their refugee status, it’s really clear that even though they have so many other parts of their life to organise – housing, jobs, education – the only thing they can think about is their family,” she says.
Along with the team at the law firm Migrant Legal Project in Bristol, Cawthorne-Luff set about making the case for Abier’s sons to be granted safety here in the UK.
It was a long and painstaking process that involved evidence gathering, for example, providing photographs and identity documents to prove they were indeed her sons, and filling in lengthy forms. And it took on a new urgency when, in April 2023, Sudan erupted into conflict and the family home was burned down. Now homeless, Abier’s sons escaped to Saudi Arabia, in the hope they could submit their application from there.
It was a desperate time, during which Abier sent any money she could spare to Saudi Arabia to pay for her sons’ hostel accommodation and food. Mazin and Khalid were stuck in limbo, scared to leave their room for fear of being deported back to Sudan.
“I was afraid they would be imprisoned,” says Abier. Cawthorne-Luff remembers feeling like the odds were stacked against the family: “I was getting Abier food bank vouchers, but she was in a bad way. She was gripped with worry – at this point, we were speaking almost every day.”
Then in December last year, Abier’s solicitor called with the news she’d been praying for – both sons’ visa applications had been accepted.
Family photographs from Sudan
“I was in denial. I said: ‘Are you sure? Can you read the email to me?’ I was crying, I was laughing at the same time. I remember I passed the phone to Aseel and I was running around the house with joy,” says Abier.
The next morning, Cawthorne-Luff went through the same deluge of emotions at her desk: “I was the first person in the office that day and I remember staring at my laptop, and my eyes just filling with tears. My colleague came in, who had also known Abier for a long time, and we both started crying. It was just such a huge relief.”
In January this year, Abier started making plans for the day she’d dreamed of, but not dared to believe in: “I cooked everything that they like. I made a lot of traditional Sudanese dishes, okra, chicken with Sudanese spices … I made sure I made their favourites.”
Cawthorne-Luff helped Abier get some warm coats, and together, they made the journey to London’s Heathrow airport on 10 January.
In January 2024, Abier and her two older sons reunited at Heathrow airport, having been separated for four years. Photographs: Claudia Janke/Nina Raingold/British Red Cross
“It was a crazy day,” says Cawthorne-Luff. “In the car, we were trying to talk and be sociable but all of our minds were completely elsewhere. And once they came through the gates, it was indescribable – relief, joy, all of the emotions,” she laughs. “There were so many tears, so many hugs. It was just really, really beautiful.”
For Abier, the sight of her long-lost sons – looking older, but still very much her boys – made her feel like she might faint. “It was an overwhelming moment,” she says.
Since then, the British Red Cross has continued to support Abier’s sons as they discover how life here works from their younger siblings.
Khalid, now 24, had been set to graduate from law school when fighting engulfed Sudan last April and Mazin, 21, was in his second year of a mechanical engineering degree. Now, they face the daunting task of starting their studies again from scratch, but at least they can do so in safety and with the support of their family.
“If the British Red Cross hadn’t been involved in the applications, I honestly think the family wouldn’t have been able to apply for family reunion,” says Cawthorne-Luff, who adds that it has been a privilege to work with the family and see Abier’s transformation.
“When we were working together at the beginning, the stress was really taking a toll on her, and there were points where she felt very helpless. But I was able to witness life coming back into Abier after the family was reunited. At the airport, she turned to me and said: ‘My life begins again now.’”
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