Mohammed Alserr is stuck in war-torn Gaza. For Yumna Ismail and her daughters Sarah, 5, and Raseel, 3, life has turned into a nightmare.
– Right now the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is splitting up families when they don’t give us any help, says Yumna Ismail.
Nothing is as usual anymore in the terraced house in Storvreta, just north of Uppsala. In the hall, Yumna Ismail holds her young daughters Sarah, 5, and Raseel, 3. They have just come home from preschool, but still haven’t gotten used to dad not being home.
In recent months, the children have had difficulty falling asleep at night. Raseel cries at night and asks for his father.
– Mohammed always used to read bedtime stories to the children. They don’t understand why he doesn’t get help to get home, says Yumna Ismail.
Mohammed Alserr, 36, is one of the many Swedes still stuck in Gaza. Despite being on the evacuation list, he has still been denied entry into Egypt.
Stopped at border control
It was close to the eye that the whole family got caught up in the war. The Alserr family traveled to Gaza in September to visit Mohammed’s father, who had been ill and underwent extensive heart surgery. Yumna Ismail tells us that Mohammed had planned the trip thoroughly.
– We were only going to stay for three weeks, and we had heard from family and friends that the situation was stable – as stable as it can be in Gaza, says Yumna Ismail.
At first everything went well. Sarah and Raseel could finally hug their grandparents, and play on the beach in the waves.
According to the plan, the whole family would leave Gaza on September 31 and then travel home via Egypt. But when the family was about to leave Gaza, Mohammed Alserr was stopped at passport control and detained.
The family then quickly made the decision that Yumna and the children would travel to Sweden in advance.
– We could never have guessed that war was just around the corner. That Mohammed would not come from there, says Yumna Ismail.
Nothing is as usual anymore in the terraced house in Uppsala. Photo: Julia Lindblom
Only a few days later, on October 8, the bombs began to fall mercilessly on Gaza.
Yumna and Mohammed each tried to get help from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but received no response.
Just like other Swedes, Mohammed Alserr has contacted the Foreign Ministry and received messages that he will be allowed to travel home several times. Risking his life, under a rain of rockets, he has headed to the border in Rafah, but still not allowed to pass.
He has until recently sought refuge at a UN school in Khan Yunis, but was injured last week in an attack.
Last week Arbetaren published a debate article written by Mohammed from inside Gaza, in which he demands that responsible ministers resign and that he must be helped to return to his family in Sweden.
Mohammed Alserr with his family in Gaza. The photo was taken days before the war began. Photo: Private
Splintered and in need of care
Yumna is constantly looking at the phone to see if Mohammed has sent any message. Israel’s military often shuts down the internet in Gaza, and the “blackout” can last for several days.
Yumna Ismail says that it has been three whole days since she last had contact with her husband. At the time, he was in Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis with a shrapnel wound in his leg, in an area heavily bombed.
– He has to go home to Sweden immediately, says Yumna and can no longer hold back the tears.
During the day, Yumna Ismail tries to study Swedish. She is a trained biochemist and teaches online, and hopes to soon know the language well enough to start working in Sweden.
– I was called to a job interview at a private company. But the psychological pressure became too great and I can’t focus on anything other than the children, the situation for the family in Gaza and for Mohammed to come home from the war, she says.
Swedish children killed in Gaza
There are still about a hundred Swedes left in Gaza who have notified the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that they want to leave the area, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ own estimates.
Currently, according to the UN, more than 25,000 people have died in the relentless bombing, of which more than 13,000 are children, and the trial regarding Israel’s genocide continues in The Hague. Representatives of the UN have described Gaza as “hell on earth” and Unicef calls Gaza a “burial ground for children”.
Several Swedish children have also been killed in recent months in the indiscriminate bombings. Eight-year-old Khadija was killed earlier in January during a nighttime bombing in Khan Yunis, and several members of her family were seriously injured, Dagens ETC reports. The girl’s mother was at the end of December in a hospital in Khan Yunis, together with the family that survived the rocket attack. She has serious back injuries and difficulty moving.
Yumna Ismail follows news reporting on the war in Gaza. Photo: Julia Lindblom
Many Swedes stuck in Gaza
On January 12, several relatives of Swedes in Gaza wrote an appeal in Aftonbladet in which they pleaded for help to get their family members home. In the appeal, the relatives demand that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs immediately act and cooperate actively with the relatives in the evacuation attempts.
“We get the feeling that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs would have treated our families differently if their names had been Alice, Maja, Felix and Liam instead of Mohammed, Khadija and Amal. We want to ask the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to show in word and deed that the lives of our families are important to them,” the relatives write in the appeal.
Yumna Ismail also cannot understand why the Ministry of Foreign Affairs does not follow the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which has been law in Sweden since 2020. Both when it comes to protecting Swedish children, who are stuck in war-torn Gaza – and helping the children in Sweden to reunite with their parents.
– Why does the Convention on the Rights of the Child not cover these children? The children need their father more than ever. Right now, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is tearing families apart when they don’t give us any help, says Yumna Ismail.
Bessma Alserr believes that the family did not hear anything from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs when they asked for help. Photo: Julia Lindblom
No help from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Bessma Alserr, Mohammed’s cousin, is visiting Yumna this Friday. She says that the family has been in contact with the ministry about twenty times regarding getting Mohammed Alserr to safety, but has not received any help. The family has also not been assigned a contact person regarding Mohammed Alserr’s case.
– Mohammed’s brother appealed to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for help, but he was treated unkindly. The answer has basically always been “this is your and your family’s problem and you can solve it yourself”. Several times a person in the switchboard has put the receiver in his ear, she says.
The Foreign Ministry has also informed the family that they have not had contact with the Swedish team in Egypt regarding Mohammed Alserr’s case.
– Despite his brother warning that he could be sent back to the war zone, the person at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs answered on the phone that she had already answered all the questions and that there was no contact with the Swedish team, she says.
Sweden does not take citizens out of the war zone themselves. The names are sent to COGAT, Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, which is an authority under Israel’s Ministry of Defense. It is also COGAT that decides who is allowed to leave Gaza via Egypt’s border crossing.
SvD revealed this week that about ten people with connections to Sweden should have been provided with a flag from the Security Police and removed from the evacuation lists. Families who had to wait months for help from Sweden. Among other things, a mother, whose daughter in primary school age was killed in a rocket attack. The families had no idea at the time that their names had been removed from the evacuation lists.
Standard response via email
When the Worker writes to the Foreign Ministry and asks about the treatment, they only respond with a standard response, which they usually send to journalists via email. The Foreign Ministry writes that they are working, as far as possible, to support Swedish citizens and people with Swedish residence permits who want to leave Gaza.
Families with children demonstrated outside the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on 22 January 2024. Yumna Ismail traveled to Stockholm with both children. Photo: Private
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs answers questions and continuously seeks contact with the Swedes who have been given permission to leave Gaza and informs them about the conditions for crossing the border and the opportunities we have to assist. Sweden’s embassy in Egypt is prepared to provide consular support to Swedes crossing the border crossing at Rafah. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has had many contacts with Swedes in Gaza and their relatives in recent months,” writes the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the email.
They further write that it is not certain that all Swedes who have expressed a desire to leave Gaza will be able to do so.
“It is local authorities who make decisions about who is allowed to leave Gaza, travel into Egypt and when that can happen. Sweden has very limited opportunities to influence local authorities’ decisions about border crossings. The same applies to all countries with citizens in Gaza,” writes the Foreign Ministry’s press service in the email.
Demonstrated outside the Foreign Ministry
Last week, Yumna Ismail and the children went to Stockholm to demonstrate outside the entrance to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, together with other families with relatives in Gaza.
The whole family continues to fight to bring Mohammed Alserr home from the war.
– Swedes in Gaza have suffered for four months. They are denied help and there is ongoing discrimination. I have a dream that Mohammed will come back to us and hold his daughters. That’s the only thing I want, she says.
