Adel and Karema are Iraqis who were living in Baghdad. In 2005, they had to leave Iraq in order to escape from the war and went to Syria. In 2007, they were recognized as “Refugees” by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and later approval for resettlement to the USA. After the civil war erupted in Syria in 2011, they were not able to wait for their resettlement to the USA, so they escaped once again and arrived in Cyprus. They have four children 18, 16, 3 and 1 year old.
Initially, they applied for asylum, but their application was rejected by the Asylum Service. Then, they appealed to the Reviewing Authority, but they have never received any answer. In the meantime, they were living as homeless in a park in Nicosia, until the Asylum Service authorised them to move to the Kofinou Reception Centre for Asylum Seekers, where they stayed for 25 months in a room of 12 m² (square meters)!
Due to their mistreatment by the responsible authorities of the Republic of Cyprus, both in terms of the delayed review of their application and the inhuman living conditions that they had to face in the Kofinou Reception Centre, they decided to leave “voluntarily” from Cyprus and return back to the Autonomous Area of Kurdistan in Iraq.
The Cypriot Authorities only provided them with airplane tickets and they were sent away on the 15th of October 2013, without even any pocket money on them…
