Thread by @MetroUK

As part of #RefugeeWeek2020 we’ve been bringing you stories of determination from refugees in the UK and around the world.

Hadiya and Shadi Ahmed have been living in a refugee camp in Iraq with their two young children for seven years.

trib.al/vYmLyVJ

In 2013 the couple were forced to leave their week-old daughter in Syria while they travelled to Iraq for urgent cancer treatment for Hadiya.

Due to the Syrian conflict, no hospitals were able to diagnose or treat Hayiya.

trib.al/vYmLyVJ

Thankfully, Hadiya is now cancer-free.

But the young parents never imagined they would still be living in an 8,400-strong refugee camp seven years later, with their daughter, seven, and son, one - neither of whom know a life outside the camp.

trib.al/vYmLyVJ

The family now live in two small concrete rooms with their own bathroom. But before, along with Hadiya’s sister’s family, they lived in a tent and used one toilet for every 15 families.

‘We had a lack of electricity, lack of water, lack of everything.'

trib.al/vYmLyVJ

Despite more than 25,000 confirmed coronavirus cases in Iraq, Hadiya and Shadi’s camp has miraculously emerged unscathed.

But food is still scarce and many people have lost the small sources of income they rely on for basic necessities.

trib.al/vYmLyVJ

Despite the obstacles the family have overcome, they never give up hope that one day they will give their children the future they had planned.

Hadiya told @menendez_elisa ‘it is our dream to give them a good quality education.' #RefugeeWeek2020

trib.al/vYmLyVJ