Six months on from the road traffic collision that killed her, Dlava Mohamed’s family feel her absence deeply. “There is something missing, you know,” Lilav Mohamed, Dlava’s sister, said, sitting in a cafe in the Ulster Canal Stores tourism centre in Clones on Friday afternoon. “Everything is different now in my family.”
Dlava (16), who lived in Clones, Co Monaghan, with her family since 2018, was killed alongside her best friend Kiea McCann (17) while travelling to a debs ball in Monaghan town on July 31st last year.
On Friday Lilav (22) was sitting alongside her sister Jihan Osso (24). Last month, for the first time in almost eight years, the sisters were reunited, after Jihan and her young family – including daughter Lilav, named after her aunt – were granted a visa to come to Ireland.
The visa was granted by the Department of Justice on compassionate ground, according to the Irish Red Cross.
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After a local effort to reunite the Syrian family in the wake of the crash last July, the visa was finalised in December 2023. The Irish Red Cross and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) then stepped in to facilitate the safe passage of Jihan and her young family to Ireland from Beirut in Lebanon.
Jihan made it to Ireland exactly six months after the tragic death of her sister.
Both sisters were in Clones on Friday for an event celebrating the family’s reunification, along with other family members – including parents Mohamed and Zeneb – and friends from the community. Lilav travelled to the event from Dublin, where her sister Avin remains in hospital recovering from injuries sustained in July’s crash.
“With my sister being here now ... especially for my mum, it’s making it easier,” Lilav said of Jihan’s arrival.
Even before July’s tragedy the Mohamed family has faced a lifetime of adversity. Displaced by the Syrian civil war in 2011, the family eventually fled the country, moving through Turkey, and on to a refugee camp in Greece.
“We had [a] long journey. We used to work, since we were little, from 12 years old, for long hours. We crossed the sea, everything was – danger,” Lilav said. “It was really, tough, you know. Looking back, we were young, we were kids, but we weren’t in a position to act like kids.
“I stopped being a child since eight years old to look after my brothers,” she said. “And not only me – everyone in my family is just the same.”
Jihan and her husband Jumma did not make the journey to Ireland with the rest of the Mohamed family in late 2017 as she was ineligible for a visa. For many years it was unclear when she would see her family again.
“It’s like a dream for her,” Lilav said. “She had never thought the day [would] come, and to be together again. So she’s very grateful, happy.”
Sascha Cumisky, a teacher at Lilav and Dlava’s former school Largy College, was instrumental in securing a visa for Jihan to come to Ireland. She first heard of Jihan while teaching Lilav in her transition year in 2018.
The loss of Dlava – as well as her best friend Kiea – is still felt acutely by the Largy College community, Ms Cumisky said.
“To lose a student, that’s a critical incident for a school, and then to lose two students ... you just can’t describe what it did to our community, to the school, to teachers, to classmates. Just everybody, there was just an air of sadness, and darkness, that is still there. Obviously as a school community, we kind of support each other and support our students as best we can in the community.”
Ms Cumisky learned about Jihan when Lilav was in transition year. “Over time, as the relationship between us all blossomed, she would tell us little bits of what she and her family had gone through,” the English and CSPE teacher said. “It’s a pity and it’s a shame in a way that it took such a tragedy for this to happen, and for people to listen on compassionate ground.”
Friday’s event was a celebration of what once was thought to be impossible. “It’s not just hyperbole when we say that this is a miracle,” Ms Cumisky said.
Her sentiments were echoed by Deirdre Garvey, secretary general of the Irish Red Cross.
Niamh Smyth, Fianna Fáil TD for Cavan-Monaghan, said she hoped Jihan’s arrival in Ireland might help the Mohamed family after suffering the loss of Dlava. “I’m sure that that helps to bring some level of comfort.”
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