(From left) Fattoum Bakir, Aya, Abdulmajeed and Khaled all have different emotions about leaving Syria and resettling in a new country. Photos: TNS
Three months ago, members of the Haj Khalaf family sat happily on the couch in their apartment in Skokie, Illinois in the United States, overjoyed to finally be free from the dangers of war in Syria and reunited after months apart.
But these days, 19-year-old Aya Haj Khalaf avoids her parents as much as possible in their tiny one-bedroom home, for fear that even the slightest mention of the homeland they fled in 2012 will bring her mother, father and older siblings to tears again.
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