Are We Still Refugees?: Courage to Escape and Survive

Lyanna watches her bruised and beaten father trip and fall into the soldier’s truck. She whispers, My mother needs me now. I must help her and try to take father’s place, Within hours, Lyanna, a thirteen-year-old girl, her mother, and her little brother escape from their home in Syria to the refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos. Jamal, Lyanna’s brother, disappears, and she blames herself. She finally finds Jamal holding Maya, a little three-year-old orphan girl, on his lap. Tabboush, a stray cat, adopts the family and brings them smiles in the filthy, overcrowded Camp Moria. Protesters screaming, Go home! Gangs of bored, angry teenagers are a constant threat. Lyanna is attacked but bravely fights the bully who is blackmailing her mother. The family waits in the refugee camp to be granted asylum in the United States. As the days drag by, they realize they are trapped in a nightmare but determined to survive. Their only hope is to immigrate to the United States; they have no place else to go.