You and your family are now living in London. How was your experience getting asylum?

Everything was easy for us, not like for other people. I know many people stuck inside Syria now, or in the camps, or in Turkey.

I had been working with Channel 4, so I had access to a visa to come to the U.K. After one year of living in Turkey, in May 2018 we came to Heathrow Airport, and claimed asylum there.

One thing, though, was that when we came to England, I couldn’t bring my second daughter, Taima. She was almost 1 year old, and she had no papers. The only paper I had was from the hospital saying I had had a child, but they didn’t even put the name of the child. I tried to go to the Syrian embassy for help, but they wouldn’t help, because Hamza was wanted by the regime [for his role in the uprising ].

My passport, Hamza’s passport and Sama’s passport were almost expired, and once that’s happened, there’s no option to get another passport, so I had no option but to leave. So I left Taima in Turkey for five months until we were granted asylum, and I could bring her to England on a temporary travel permit from the U.K. I try not to think about that time too much. I’m just glad that nightmare is finished.

Do you and your family hope to return to Syria?

Of course. Not just because it would mean seeing my home, but because for all of us who stayed till the end, being out of Syria is not something that we want. But we had no other option.

Even in Turkey, it’s not that good of a life, even if you are safe. You feel that you are besieged in a different way. Your right to stay and your right to leave and your right to do anything, even to work … it’s so hard to have legal things.