Majed Awot was born and grew up in Saudi Arabia in 1965 from a Palestinian father and mother. When he was young, he moved with his family to Iraq, where he got married and established his own family. During early 1990’s, the Arab war broke out and forced him to flee away to Syria with his wife looking for an asylum. He settled his life in Damascus since 1991, building his own house and bearing the boys who are currently at the age of 30, 20, 12, 10 and 8.
While they were living a peaceful life in Syria, the civil war broke out in 2011. During the war, many infrastructures, buildings and residential houses were destroyed, as it was theirs. He got seriously injured on his left leg, and currently he can walk thanks to the use of a crutch.
When they tried to escape the war, the family got separated. Him and two of the children reached Egypt in 2016. He tried to reunite the family, but the Egyptian government didn’t allow them to enter into the country.
As a result, he and his two sons further ed to Sudan in the same year whole family was able to reunite in Khartoum, Sudan, at the end of 2016.
The high living cots at Khartoum forced him to leave Sudan and go to Turkey in 2018, planning to arrange a living in there for later bringing his family with him… however, difculties in mobility and high costs, added to the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 made impossible to bring his family with him, so he had to return to Sudan. In the meantime, their second born son who has mental and nerve problem was lost in Khartoum. In face of the costs of living and the high insecurity, the family went to Ethiopia and reached Addis Ababa at the end of August 2020, while his son was still lost in Khartoum. Fortunately, they managed to find him two months later, in October 2020, and immediately joined the family again.
The family has no means to pay for food nor house rent; what forced them to visit ARRA office looking for emergency support, who further referred them to JRS/RCC looking for emergency assistance.
JRS/RCC welcomed them and has gone through their cases and current. The office found that they are asylum seekers and registered at ARRA office at the beginning of November 2020 therefore they are permitted to live in Addis Ababa until November 2021. However, their registration process at UNHCR office in order to secure their monthly allowance has been delayed due to COVID 19. They have nothing for means of survival. JRS/RCC office learnt that they are in desperate need of housing support and food assistance. Therefore, the office has considered their desperate living situation and provided them with financial assistance, food and blankets to meet their immediate survival needs.
They are still in urgent need of further humanitarian support in order to meet their pressing basic needs, but JRS keeps accompanying them to assist them in such a though journey.
