‘Here is my second home’ : Syrian woman says she’s proud to have settled in N.B.

SAINT JOHN – A woman who left Syria with her family to stay in Canada says refugees can have a good life in New Brunswick.

Layla Rahmeh, her daughter and parents left Syria nearly three and a half years ago. They came to visit Rahmeh’s brothers who had been living in Canada for several years.

She said the violence in Syria was putting their lives at risk.

“My daughter escaped from an explosion a few minutes before the explosion,” she said. “Her school bus just passed along that area and it was a huge explosion in Damascus.”

She said they weren’t expecting to stay, but when fighting escalated in their home country they knew it would be too dangerous to return.

“We applied for asylum,” she said. “We were like refugee claimants and we filed for the protection of the Canadian government.”

Since then, Rahmeh’s found a good paying job, bought a home and her daughter’s attending university with the help of a scholarship.

Now she’s hoping the federal government’s promise to bring 25,000 refugees to Canada will encourage more newcomers to make New Brunswick their home.

“I can say that here is my second home,” she said.

Justin Ryan speaks for the Multicultural Association of the Greater Moncton Area. He says Rahmeh’s story is similar to that of other refugees who have settled in the area.

“MAGMA’s been resettling refugees into the greater Moncton area for 35 years. We have story after story of success of the people who have come here, basically with nothing,” he said.