ABU DHABI —

Thirteen year-old Ibrahim Hamad has been reunited with his Syrian family in the UAE on Sept. 12 after spending three years in a German refugee camp. “There were times when I thought I would never see them again,” Hamad told Khaleej Times.

Two months after Hamad fled the war to Germany, his mother and siblings were able to move to the UAE to join his father, who has been in the country for a while.

Speaking to Khaleej Times about his experience in Germany, Hamad said: “They took good care of me, but no matter how nice some places are, it means nothing if you’re without your family.”

The UAE announced in 2016 that it will welcome 15,000 Syrians into the country in a span of five years, and it also recently announced offering residents from war-troubled countries a one-year residency permit as a part of the country’s three-month-long amnesty program.

At 11, Hamad took the deadly sea route from Turkey to Greece to flee the Syrian war, after which he went to Germany. — Al Arabiya English