By gemma peplow
Saturday, August 28, 2010
She spent seven agonising years not knowing if they were alive or dead, waiting every day for news of them.
Workers at the Red Cross, the charity that helped her when she came to Leicester, told her not to give up hope, and kept up the fight to find her family using the international tracing and messaging service.
Last year, Saadia, of Highfields, got the news she had longed for – her four children and her mother were alive.
She told her story to the Mercury ahead of the International Day of the Disappeared, which will be marked on Monday.
"It was so, so hard but the Red Cross gave me hope," Saadia said. "They always said they would find my children."
Saadia, now 40, fled Somalia with her mother, two sons and two daughters in 1996, after her husband was killed.
The family lived in Kenya, sharing one room, but Saadia found herself constantly hiding from the authorities – and was arrested twice for not having any identification.
In 2002, she was offered the opportunity to travel to London. She was told her mother and children would follow, but this did not happen.
After staying with a friend in Birmingham for four years, she married and moved to London, but the relationship became abusive and she fled to Leicester.
In 2006, Saadia visited the Red Cross, in London Road, and started to volunteer, supporting other asylum seekers.
Workers encouraged her to try to trace her family.
In April 2009, a man tracked her down with a picture of her family, taken in Tanzania.
She said: "I didn't know if the photo was of my children as they looked so big. I used the phone at the Red Cross offices and rang the number given.
"My mother answered the phone and we cried. I think I cried for a whole week. I bought hundreds of phone cards so I could speak to them."
Once Saadia had been granted asylum, the Red Cross was able organise a ticket to Tanzania so she could visit her family.
"My children were so big," said Saadia. "I want to bring them to the UK to join me, but as two of them are now over 18 this may not be possible.
"I have completed the forms so now I am waiting."
Saadia said her volunteer work at the Red Cross and marking International Day of the Disappeared would always be important to her.
"When someone arrives, I tell them they have come to the right place, that the Red Cross will help them."
Leicester branch worker Cathy Stevenson helped Saadia and other charity staff and volunteers mark International Day of the Disappeared with a flower planting ceremony.
She said: "We want to keep alive the memories for those still missing loved ones."
Source: This is Leicestershire