Can Erözden
16 January 2019•Update: 17 January 2019
By Burak Karacaoglu and Esref Musa
IDLIB, Syria
A senior Sudanese ambassador on Wednesday thanked Turkey's Anadolu Agency and the Turkish government and an aid group for their help in bringing home a Sudanese woman who was trapped in Syria.
Ubeyde Muhammed Fadlallah, undersecretary at Sudan’s Embassy in the Turkish capital Ankara, told Anadolu Agency that they are grateful for the agency publicizing the plight of Yusriyye Abdulkerim Hano being trapped in war-torn Syria.
In addition to Anadolu Agency, Fadlallah also thanked the Turkish Interior and Foreign Ministries, police, and the Istanbul-based Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH) for supplying Hano with accommodation, food, clothing medical care.
Hano, 34, said that she was very happy to be back in her country.
"I have been in Syria for eight years," she said.
"Today I will return to my country so I am very happy. My family will see my children for the first time ever and my children will see Sudan for the first time. We thank Anadolu Agency for telling our story to the world."
Hano also thanked the IHH for bringing them to Turkey.
Hano and her four children will go to the Sudanese capital Khartoum.
In 2011, Hano arrived in Syria’s northern Idlib province to meet her husband's family but became trapped in Syria due to the civil war.
After her husband left her, Hano and her children struggled to survive in a refugee camp.
After Anadolu Agency wrote about Hano's story last November, the Humanitarian Relief Foundation started work to return her to Sudan.
The Turkish charity group has been helping war victims since the beginning of the Syrian civil war.
Syria has only just begun to emerge from a devastating conflict that began in 2011 when the Bashar al-Assad regime cracked down on demonstrators with unexpected ferocity.
Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been killed or displaced in the conflict, mainly by regime airstrikes targeting opposition-held areas.
