Today marks the beginning of Refugee Week, and three people who arrived in the UK in search of safety have said they are grateful to those in the county who have embraced them with open arms.
Living in sleepy Suffolk, it is easy forget that so many countries are torn apart by conflict. However, over the past few years, the county has become a home to increasing numbers of people fleeing from terrifying situations.
“When I think of Ipswich, I don’t think of it as ‘home for now,’ said Lutfullah Ahmadi. “I just think of it as home.”
Lutfullah and his wife, Saghar Ayan, fled Afghanistan in October 2021, just two months after the government was taken over by the Islamic fundamentalist group the Taliban.
“We weren’t safe. We had to hide ourselves,” explained Lutfullah. He and his wife had both worked for the BBC, and he also did freelance media work for Oxfam. Being affiliated with western media put them at huge risk, and they were relieved when the BBC agreed to help them resettle in Europe.
When they arrived in the UK, the couple spent more than a year living in ‘bridging’ hotels with other Afghan refugees around Suffolk, including Stowmarket and Bury St Edmunds.
Living in such a confined space for a prolonged period of time was not easy, especially when Saghar discovered she was pregnant with the couple’s first child, a baby boy. Bahesh was born in October 2022, a true “hotel baby”, in his father’s words.
Meanwhile, Yuliia Naumenko is immensely proud that her five-year-old daughter, Alisa, is now so immersed in English that she is sometimes mistaken for a British child.
Yuliia, her mother and Alisa were some of the first Ukrainians to flee in March 2022. At first, Yuliia was reluctant to leave their home in Irpin. However, her mother could remember the horrors of Chernobyl and was adamant that they had to find safety for Alisa.
Leaving Yuliia’s husband behind, the three made their way first to Vienna, where Yuliia heard about the newly-launched scheme Homes for Ukraine.
She made contact with a friend, Irena, who lived in Haverhill, who offered to act as a host.
“Irena was talking about us being their for six months,” said Yuliia, a former data analyst. “I said, don’t worry, we’ll be home in two weeks.”
The war has now been raging for 16 months, and there is no hope of going back to Ukraine just yet.
However, Yuliia and Alisa have begun to put down roots in Suffolk. Yuliia found a job at a KFC branch in Haverhill, and now works as a barista in Bury St Edmunds, where she now lives. Alisa, who was too young to attend school when she left Ukraine, has settled in at her new school and has a wide circle of friends.
She still misses her father desperately and speaks to him often on FaceTime.
“He sometimes tells me I am forgetting what life is like in Ukraine,” said Yuliia. “He says that the war now is the worst it has ever been.”
She is, however, determined to give Alisa as normal and happy a childhood as she possibly can.
Lutfullah and Saghar plan to do the same for Bahesh, whose name means ‘happy man’ in their native Dari.
Raising their son so far away from their family has not been easy. However, the couple were delighted to move into their own home in February.
Being able to invite friends over, and to be able to cook whichever meals they like has been a revelation. The couple are now both studying English and volunteering in Ipswich, with the help of Suffolk Refugee Support.
To keep up with Suffolk Refugee Support's news, visit their Facebook page.
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