Khaled Hosseini visits refugees in Lebanon and Italy

Khaled Hosseini meets with Syrian refugee Noura (27-year-old) who single-handedly takes care of her 5-year-old son, Ziad, and her 3-year-old daughter, Rawa'a after her husband, Mohamad (30 yrs old), travelled to Germany via the sea crossing from Turkey to Greece and then overland. Mohamad and Noura are originally from Homs in Syria. They fled to Lebanon in 2012 to seek safety. Despite tough livelihood conditions, Noura holds out strong hope that she and her children will be reunited with their father sometime soon. Mohamad has applied for family reunification through the German Embassy.

In June 2018 Khaled Hosseini travelled to Lebanon to understand the circumstances that led many families to making the heart-wrenching decision for one or more member to take the high risk, desperate journey to Europe. He met with wives separated from husbands, children from parents, sisters from brothers – all hoping for family reunification. Moving on to Italy (Sicily) Khaled spent time with survivors of the Mediterranean sea crossing and visited the graves of those souls lost at sea trying to reach safety. He also met with refugee families restarting their lives in Italy through official resettlement programmes, one of the alternative safe and legal pathways for refugees seeking safety in countries around the world beyond their first country of asylum.

Over the coming days we will be sharing films, photos and stories from Khaled’s time in Lebanon and Italy.