Syrian refugee stranded at Malaysia airport for seven months gets Canadian citizenship

New Delhi: After years of uncertainty, including seven months spent stranded in a Malaysia airport, Syrian refugee Hassan Al Kontar has finally become a Canadian citizen.

“Today I am stateless no more,” Al Jazeera report quoted Al Kontar as saying.

Al Kontar, now 41, first caught world’s attention in 2018 when he began to document his agony in the airport on social media. Al Kontar, who had fled the Syrian civil conflict, was left stranded in the Kuala Lumpur International Airport without valid immigration documents and was unable to leave the country.

Al Kontar, who took the oath of citizenship of Canada on Wednesday, said that his protracted search for asylum had finally been successful and recalled what all he had to go through to get here.

“For this, I lost a destroyed country. I was not able to be there for my father when he needed me the most or to be by his side when he passed away. I watched my brother’s wedding over Skype when I was stuck at the airport. I was jailed and faced a racist system,” the report quoted Kontar as saying.

After spending 11 years in the United Arab Emirates, Kontar was deported from the country in October 2017 after he refused to obtain a new Syrian passport out of concern that he would be compelled to return to Syria and fight for the Assad regime there.

He was sent to Malaysia, one of the few countries where Syrians can receive a visa on entry,  but his three-month tourist visa soon expired.

He paid a penalty fee for overstaying his visa and attempted to fly to Ecuador but was not allowed to board the plane. He then tried to go to Cambodia but was again sent back to Malaysia.

With no home to return to and no state to call his own, Al Kontar spent more than half a year living in Kuala Lumpur International Airport’s domestic transfer terminal.

It was during that time Al Kontar began to document his everyday experiences, sharing videos on social media. He also spoke of the plight facing Syrian refugees.

Things took a turn for the worse when Malaysian authorities arrested him in October 2018. He was sent to a detention centre, where authorities said they would seek to deport him to Syria.

Meanwhile, Al Kontar’s social media posts had caught the attention of a handful of volunteers in Canada, who filed a refugee application on his behalf. After his arrest, Canada cleared him for asylum, and he touched down in Vancouver in November 2018.

Al Kontar is now hopeful that he will be able to fulfil two of his dreams: visiting a refugee camp as a case worker to help individuals who are experiencing statelessness and reconciling with his family after nearly 15 years apart.

With inputs from agencies

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