“I was very excited to be here,” Sahar says. “When he left I felt empty because I was used to him being next to me.”
Before the conflict in the Middle East escalated in late September, Mohamad, whose family had relocated from Sydney to Beirut a decade ago, and Sahar pictured a life for themselves in Lebanon.
Now in Sydney, Mohamad’s family still scour social media and news websites each day for updates from Lebanon – especially as Mohamad’s father stayed behind to care for his elderly mother.
“Now that she [Sahar] is here, I feel a million bucks, but obviously there’s still that lingering sense of [fear for] my dad and her family,” Mohamad says. “But for the most part I’m very grateful.”
Sahar says the feeling of safety is yet to sink in.
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The day before the Herald visited, she dreamt that drones were circling above Sydney.
“I still have this feeling of I’m not safe,” she says.
Sahar also fears for her family in Lebanon, who have moved to the country’s north.
“Even though we’re here, we’re very worried,” she says. “Sometimes I’m not comfortable because all I do is think about them.”
Mohamad and Sahar are focused on building a new life for themselves in Sydney after fleeing Lebanon.Credit: Kate Geraghty
Torn between joining Mohamad in Australia and staying in Lebanon, Sahar’s family made the decision for her to leave. “They were sad, but they told me: life has to go on,” she says.
Days earlier, they had learnt that a family friend, a first-year American University of Beirut student named Farah Mokdad, and her family had been killed in an Israeli airstrike on their home in the Bekaa Valley, northeast of Beirut.
Other friends displaced in Lebanon are among hundreds sharing accommodation in schools and mosques, surviving on rationed supplies without hot water. Just before Sahar fled, an airstrike destroyed the store from which she bought her engagement party dress.
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The couple lives in hope of the conflict ending, and a ceasefire.
Until then, their focus is on building a new life in Sydney – Sahar hopes to study a master’s degree in biology; Mohamad is applying for a master’s degree in computer sciences.
“For now, we’re just happy to be with each other,” he says.
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