A Syrian Muslim refugee aided by the Catholic relief agency Caritas Jordan now volunteers to help other refugees, saying the agency staff makes him feel like “a brother.”
“Being a volunteer in Caritas is an honor that I will take until death,” said Amer Fahd Al Naser, 38. “I’m really, really happy that I’m delivering the Caritas message, the Caritas Mission, as a Muslim.”
He credits Caritas with helping him survive the difficulties of being a refugee.
Al Naser now lives with his wife Noor, their two sons, his sister and his mother in an apartment in the Jordanian city of Al Zarqa.
It was not always this way.
Al Naser keeps on his cell phone a video of his neighborhood in Homs, Syria. It shows desolated buildings with walls blown out by explosions. The streets are lined with drab rubble.
“This district used to have 200,000 persons. Now no one is here,” he told CNA and a group of reporters Oct. 27.
His home district was a center of opposition to President Bashar Al Assad. It became the target of military action in 2011 after a violent crackdown on anti-government protests spiraled into a major conflict that has killed over 191,000 and displaced millions of people from their homes.
Al Naser and his family fled the home where had been born. They went first to Damascus, where they stayed in the Palestinian refugee camp Yermouk.
“Even in the camp, we had bombs as well,” he said…Read More
Source and Original Content by CNA