Two years ago we interviewed Ayman Hirh, who had fled from Syria to Scotland with his family. On World Refugee Day, he reveals how life has changed

Ayman Hirh sometimes looks at his twin sons and wonders what happened to the pair of frightened toddlers who fled Syria four years ago.

Bishir and Bassil, now six, no longer think of bombs when fireworks light up the sky outside their Edinburgh flat, nor do they remember the bullet that once tore through the window of their home in the Damascus suburb of Jobar.

They know little of the war that has ripped their family apart, killed friends and relatives and forced them into exile. Their parents wouldn’t have it any other way.

“The boys are now speaking English with a Scottish accent and their teacher told me a few weeks ago that no one can tell that English isn’t their mother language,” says Hirh. “They are 100% Scottish … We don’t want them to remember and to keep bad memories in their minds.”

Hirh and his wife, Iman, don’t let the boys watch the news, but they can’t filter out all the images from Syria.

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“When they see something on the TV and ask, ‘Why is that child crying, Dad?’, I tell them it’s because he’s lost his house, his mum and his family. Then they ask why that is. They can’t understand why Bashar al-Assad is making this war on his own people. We just tell them that there’s a big war in Syria.”

Though the couple are doing their best to keep up the boys’ Arabic, it is a struggle. “They prefer to speak English all the time,” says Hirh. Sadly, he muses, their linguistic talents have now extended to “very bad words that they’ve learned from the street”.

That aside, the family has no complaints. Although Hirh lost his job at Edinburgh airport 18 months ago because he couldn’t provide the necessary paperwork from Syria, he now volunteers for the British Red Cross in Glasgow. Not only does the work allow him to keep up some of the four languages he speaks, it also makes him feel useful.

“We provide services to refugees and asylum seekers from many different countries: Kurds, Eritreans, Sudanese, Syrians. Every time I go to work, I hear different stories; I meet Syrian people and do interpreting for them and so I hear stories from different parts of Syria.

“Every time I meet one of them, I hear a tragic story and they tell me how they got from Turkey to Europe and arrived in the UK. It’s really sad but at the same time, I’m happy to be providing services to people who really need them.”

Almost a year ago, Hirh was on a train to London when another desperate Syrian refugee got in touch.

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“My mobile rang and I saw a UK number. When I picked it up, it was my nephew, whispering, ‘Uncle, I am in the UK. I am in a big lorry travelling fast in the UK but I don’t know where I am.’”

Hirh told him to bang on the truck to get the driver’s attention and get him to call the police. His nephew now has refugee status and is also living in Scotland.

Things have become slightly easier for the family since Iman got a job as a room attendant in hotel in Edinburgh. Hirh’s delight at his wife’s achievement – she arrived in the UK unable to speak English – is plain. The twins, though, were thrilled for a different reason: “As soon as she got a job, they said to her: ‘Oh, you can buy us an Xbox 360 now!’”

Bishir and Bassil were equally excited a few months ago when the British Red Cross and a London-based graffiti artist made Hirh one of the faces of the Syrian crisis by painting his image on a wall in Camden, north London.

The Hirhs are happy in the UK and thankful for the sanctuary it represents but, like many refugees, the couple are haunted by a daily question.



“Every night, before we go to bed, my wife and I ask ourselves: do we think we’ll be able to go back to Syria one day?” says Hirh.

“All the signs and the information suggest we won’t be able to. My children don’t want to know that they’re Syrian. They say, ‘No. We are not from Syria. It’s your country.’”