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Kaffa Alwane, baby asleep in her arms, sailed down the escalator at Ottawa’s airport Tuesday after a flight that lasted about four years. It began in her homeland of Syria, took a lengthy, painful detour into Jordan, and ended when she was enveloped in a huge hug by a stranger in her new country.

“Welcome,” said Shabana Baig, whose whole family came to the airport to greet the first large group of Syrian refugees to arrive in Ottawa. “You’re home now.”

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Baig’s daughter held a hand-made welcome sign, in English and Arabic, while her husband and two sons handed out Canadian flags and stuffed toys to the 26 refugees who stepped off a plane after a journey from Jordan. Most of them were children.

“I don’t want them to feel alone,” said Baig. “We are here to help them. This is their new home. We are waiting for them.” She knows what it’s like to be a newcomer, having arrived from Pakistan in 1997 with “a blanket, two kids and nothing else.”

Photo by Julie Oliver / Ottawa Citizen

Tuesday’s arrivals are the first wave of about 600 government-sponsored Syrian refugees expected in Ottawa over the next two months.

They arrived in a blizzard, but the four families gathered with their suitcases and shopping bags seemed heartened by the warm welcome.

“I’m very happy,” said Alwane, 21, through a translator, as baby Saloa slept through the excitement. It’s much better than what the family saw in Syria, Alwane said, smiling shyly.

“Canada is a good place,” said her husband Tamer Al Tadmory, 26, also speaking through a translator. “It’s so beautiful and we can’t even feel the cold,” he said politely. “I’m very happy to be here.”

The couple knows not a soul in Ottawa. “The most important thing is my daughter and my wife, that they get an education and a new life,” said Tadmory.

Photo by Julie Oliver / Ottawa Citizen

The Baig family has been working with other volunteers from The Muslim Coordinating Council of the National Capital Region to collect everything from clothing to furniture and kitchenware to help the refugees get settled. The goods are ready to be distributed to the newcomers. “If they need anything, we’ve got it,” says Baig.

The freezing temperature and blowing snow Tuesday were good “welcome weather,” she laughed. “The weather is harsh, but people are warm and helping. We always welcome immigrants, this is our Canadian culture.”