Hassan Al-Kontar, the Syrian refugee who lived in KLIA2 for the better part of 2018, posting videos of his daily life after having been stopped en route to Ecuador, has taken to his Twitter page to tell his followers that he is finally on his way to Canada.
Breaking news ✌✌ pic.twitter.com/o2vQGROBdS
— Hassan Al Kontar (@Kontar81) November 26, 2018
Since February, he had been regularly updating his social media page from his makeshift home in Kuala Lumpur airport. The asylum seeker found himself with few options after Turkish Airlines denied his travel to South America; Cambodian authorities subsequently refused to allow him entry; and Malaysian immigration officials took him to task over a previously over-stayed visa.
Several aid organizations, including the UN High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR), gave Hassan assistance, trying to find a viable solution for the Syrian. However, it soon became clear that there was only one country for him – Canada. A petition long pinned to the top of his Twitter page asked the Canadian government to allow him to enter.
Although Ottawa had said that processing such claims can take two years, it seems that Hassan’s stay has been fast-tracked, and he tweeted today from Taiwan’s Taoyuan International Airport that he is now en route to Vancouver.
Al-Kontar fell afoul of Malaysian authorities in October, after several videos posted to his page implied that not only was he living in airport exile, but that no country would take him. The airport stay finally ended in October, when he was arrested for entering a “forbidden zone.”
At the time, both Malaysia’s home minister and its immigration director-general made statements indicating their patience with the refugee had worn thin. Not only was he clearly embarrassing Malaysian officials by posting his airport videos, it was revealed that he had also allegedly rejected an offer to stay here (along with several other countries in the region), maintaining that he wanted to go to Canada.
While there was talk of deporting Hassan back to Syria, it seems that divine international intervention has stepped in, and he is finally on his way to his wintry country of choice.
“For now, it’s not important where I have been or what went on … What is important is today and tomorrow. The present and the future,” he told his 18,000 Twitter followers this morning.
Calling the past 10 months “very hard and cold,” he said: “I could not do it without support and prayers from all of you. I could not do it without the help of my family, my Canadian friend’s family, my lawyer. Thank you all.”
He added that he would keep everyone updated about himself.
Hassan, left Syria for the United Arab Emirates many years ago for work.
In the first of his videos — published March 12, Al-Kontar explained that after the UAE refused to re-up his residency visa after the Syrian war broke out, he continued to quietly live there illegally, rather than risk returning to the civil war now raging back home.
UAE authorities caught up with him in 2016, and sent him to a deportation facility, then forwarded him on to Malaysia, one of the few countries to offer visa on arrival for Syrians.
Having entered Malaysia on a three-month tourist visa, he once again found himself without legal standing when that expired in January 2017. After saving money in Malaysia for a year, he was finally able to buy a plane ticket out of the country to what he thought was a safe haven: Ecuador. And so began a series of rejections that eventually landed Al-Kontar back at KLIA2, where he began vlogging about his situation.
Though sometimes selective with the information he shared (Hassan never admitted that he had actually received several offers from other nations), his case garnered widespread sympathy.
Good luck in Canada, Hassan – you’re just in time for winter and FYI – it’s f*cking freezing. And please, analogously bankrupt writers — can we stop likening this situation to the Tom Hanks movie The Terminal that bears little actual relation to this situation? Thanks.
