![\"Congolese](\"https:\/\/www.unrefugees.org\/media\/inklyg4o\/fathers-day.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nCongolese refugee Ishara lives with his wife and young children at the Musenyi refugee site in Burundi. Ishara\u2019s wife fled the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) with their children and her sister when their daughter was just three days old. Ishara soon followed, escaping attacks and forced recruitment by rebels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey came knocking at night,\u201d Ishara recalls. \u201cThey wanted me to ferry them on my motorbike, but when I refused, they tried to kill me. They wanted me to join the rebel group.\u201d He survived by hiding in the bushes, moving cautiously to avoid being captured, but he was unsure if he would ever see his family again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI was relieved to learn my family was alive. I had to find them, especially my newborn baby.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now reunited, Ishara feels an overwhelming sense of gratitude. \u201cI am very happy to be here. Now, I just want my children to get an education and for my wife and me to build a future where we can provide for our family.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ahmed scoops up his daughter after being reunited with her at a bus station in Homs, Syria<\/a>. Ahmed returned from Jordan to Syria<\/a> a week prior, followed by his daughter and her mother. Now he is welcoming his daughter to a home country she has never known.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The family will be staying in Ahmed\u2019s aunt\u2019s house, as Ahmed\u2019s own home was destroyed during the conflict. Despite this, he feels optimistic about the future. He said, “As long as we are now in our country, we are happy. A home that we built in the past, we’ll build again. The important thing is to see my country return to the way it was, where my daughter can walk down the street safely.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mahmoud was forced to flee his home in Myanmar in 2016, as persecution against the Rohingya<\/a> escalated. He first fled to Bangladesh but continued his journey in search of safety and stability, eventually arriving in Greece.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI knew nothing about Greece before arriving, but I felt that I could live a life of freedom here \u2013 a life with my family,\u201d he recalled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n His wife and children were constantly in his thoughts throughout his journey. Along with hundreds of thousands of Rohingya, they had fled to Bangladesh during a massive wave of violence that broke out in Myanmar\u2019s Rakhine State in August 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After receiving refugee status in Greece in 2019, Mahmoud applied for family reunification. But he never imagined it would take five years to receive a positive decision allowing his family to join him in Greece.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cUntil today, my children and I had no future,\u201d Mahmoud shared as he waited at the airport for his family to arrive in November 2024. \u201cNow I feel that we have found the safety and hope we were looking for, and that we belong in this country. We can now build our future here as a family.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n How to help\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, supports refugees who have been forced to flee violence, war and persecution. Our donors help refugees in their greatest time of need with shelter, food, water and medical care, and their support builds awareness for resettled refugees living in the U.S. With your help,<\/a> more refugees will have the opportunity to build peaceful lives and give their families a bright future.<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Around the world, countless refugee fathers are separated from their children \u2014 sometimes for years at a time. Conflict, forced displacement, voluntary returns and complex […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":254,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,3,4,8,9,2,6,10,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-human-rights-for-refugees-news","category-humanitarian-news","category-protection-news","category-refugees-news","category-relief-applications-page-news","category-relief-news","category-un-news","category-unhcr-annual-reports","category-unhcr-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhcr.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhcr.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhcr.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhcr.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhcr.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rhcr.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":255,"href":"https:\/\/rhcr.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253\/revisions\/255"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhcr.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhcr.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhcr.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhcr.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Syrian](\"https:\/\/www.unrefugees.org\/media\/aceas4yh\/fathers-day-2.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"Rohingya](\"https:\/\/www.unrefugees.org\/media\/gdhnow2a\/fathers-day-3.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n