Syrian father’s desperate bid to bring sons to Malta

The hopes of one Syrian widower, enjoying humanitarian protection in Malta, have been dashed by the authorities’ refusal to allow his children to leave the war-stricken country and join him, at the end of a three-year slog through the thick bureaucratic jungle surrounding asylum and refugee applications.

Assem Abou Moughdib, a chef by trade, works with a cleaning company in Malta, having fled his home in Swaida, Syria to avoid being conscripted to fight in the brutal civil war that is currently ravaging the country.

Before civil war erupted in his homeland, Abou Moughdib, a supporter of the Assad regime, had travelled in Malta in 2008 to find work, leaving his family behind.

After the outbreak of hostilities in his homeland and fearing conscription into the army if he returned, in 2013 he applied for asylum in Malta as a refugee but this was rejected.

Instead, he was granted temporary humanitarian protection until he is either able to return to his homeland or accepted by a third country.

The depths of the man’s misery are hard to fathom. Abou Moughdib has four children. The last time he saw any of them was in 2009. Since then, his wife, Amira, died in 2014, Husam, 24, his eldest son, was conscripted into the army, never to be heard from since and Marwa, 25, his only daughter, now lives in exile in Turkey with her husband’s family.

Realistically, the Syrian can only hope to be reunited with his two youngest sons Wesam, 18, and Sebal, 16.


Unable to bring his sons to Malta, having been refused refugee status, he asked the Jesuit Refugee Service for help. On 24 April 2015, after the JRS pleaded his case, Home Affairs Minister Carmelo Abela had approved a special request for the man’s two sons – then aged 17 and 15, to join their father in Malta, on humanitarian grounds.

His relief was to be short-lived. On 15 July 2015, the Chairman of the Refugee Appeals Board reviewed the application and held it to be inadmissible according to law – despite the request having already been approved at ministerial level.


In the meantime, the Syrian had been instructed by the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) to ensure his children travelled to Malta’s consulate in Istanbul so as to have their visa issued.

Abou Moughdib himself had also made his way from Malta to the Turkish capital, but had to return after a month in which no news about his children was forthcoming.


In Malta, lawyer Arthur Azzopardi took up Abou Moughdib’s case, writing to both Abela and justice minister Owen Bonnici in February this year, explaining that unbelievably, 10 months after applying to have them join him, his client’s sons were still in war-torn Syria, waiting to be issued with a visa to enter Malta via Turkey.

Minister Abela had sent a reply by email on the 26 February this year, confirming that he had approved special clearance in this case.

An exchange of increasingly frantic email correspondence between Azzopardi and the Home Affairs ministry ensued, but in spite of Azzopardi’s efforts, the children’s visas remain unissued.

More bureaucratic surprises were in store. As part of the convoluted application process for a Turkish visa, in March the children were granted an appointment by the Turkish authorities – for December 2016.

After being told that they would require a Turkish residence permit or authorisation from Malta to lodge a visa application in Istanbul, the lawyer’s emailed reply captures his frustration:

“My clients are not in possession of a Turkish residence permit and shall never be in possession of such a document as things stand with the Turkish government! Why should my clients incur an extra expenditure vis-a-vis a flight with a return date when they shall not be returning to Turkey but reside in Malta with their dad?”

Yet another email was sent to ministers Abela and Bonnici, together with the heads of various entities in April 2016, pointing out the deteriorating situation in Syria.

In reply it was suggested that he contact the Maltese Consulate in Algiers, “to get the list of the supporting documents needed together with the visa application and make an appointment,” as they had been notified with the visa application.

The Turkish door now firmly closed, the sons’ air tickets were cancelled and the boys instructed to try to join their father in Malta via Algeria, the only country which does not require a travel visa for Syrian citizens to enter – provided they spend no more than three months there.

As luck would have it the Algerian authorities would not issue an entry visa to Wesam and Sebal, leaving them with one last option to escape the horror of Syria: travelling to Malta via Lebanon.

On 1 August, a full 16 months after the Home Affairs Minister’s order, and with no solution in sight, Abou Moughdib’s lawyer tried a different approach. He sought permission to have the children’s passports couriered to Malta to allow the visa to be affixed, before being returned to allow the man to be reunited with his sons.

Ten days later, a one-sentence reply from the Central Visa Unit: “Please be informed that after carefully considering this case, unfortunately, their applications cannot be processed from this unit.”

On the 6 September the final bombshell: an outright refusal to issue the visas, with Minister Carmelo Abela’s explicit approval of the urgent request, apparently forgotten amidst the slow churn of turgid, inflexible, bureaucracy.

Questions sent to the CVU on Friday were not answered, instead redirected to the Ministry for Justice, Culture and Local Government.

Family Reunification

Assistance for family reunification is only given to persons granted refugee status and in order to be granted refugee status, applicants must be fleeing persecution on reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.