Since Yaman Alsaadi arrived in the United States in 2016 as a refugee from Syria, he has been adjusting to a whole new way of life. There’s the language, of course, which he’s still learning, and snowstorms, which he recently experienced for the first time. And the 18-year-old finds high school football games confusing and intimidating.
But the challenges he’s facing now in his new home of Des Moines, Iowa, are nothing compared to what he was up against when he was living in Damascus, the capital of Syria. A civil war has been raging in the Middle Eastern nation since 2011. More than 400,000 people have died in the conflict and another 5 million have fled the country.
Yaman, along with his parents and younger sister, escaped Syria in 2012 after their home was bombed. They spent the next four years in neighboring Jordan, along with thousands of other refugees, before United Nations (UN) aid workers offered them the chance to apply for entry into the U.S. They jumped at the opportunity.
Yaman Alsaadi arrived in the United States in 2016 as a refugee from Syria. He has been adjusting to a whole new way of life ever since. There is the language, of course, which he is still learning. There are snowstorms, which he recently experienced for the first time. And the 18-year-old finds high school football games confusing and intimidating.
But the challenges he is facing now in his new home of Des Moines, Iowa, are nothing compared with what he was up against when he was living in Damascus, the capital of Syria. A civil war has been raging in the Middle Eastern nation since 2011. More than 400,000 people have died in the conflict. Another 5 million have fled the country.
Yaman, along with his parents and younger sister, escaped Syria in 2012 after their home was bombed. They spent the next four years in neighboring Jordan, along with thousands of other refugees. Then United Nations (UN) aid workers offered them the chance to apply for entry into the U.S. They jumped at the opportunity.