Tuesday July 15, 2014
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Trinity United Church is reuniting the Awil Adhar family, refugees from Somalia. (P.E.I. Presbytery)
A church in Charlottetown is reuniting four young Somali refugees with the rest of their family after more than four years trying.
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Nasro Awil Adhar and her three younger siblings came to P.E.I. in 2008 through a sponsorship from the Muslim Association of P.E.I. In 2010 Trinity United Church decided to sponsor the rest of the Awil Adhar family.
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Harry Kielly of Trinity United told CBC News while it’s wonderful three other members of the family will come to Charlottetown July 23 it took a long time to process their papers, and he thinks the Canadian government should be doing more to help refugees.
“Our refugee intake in Canada is minimal on a worldwide basis. They will be one of only a few thousand that will be coming into Canada this year,” said Kielly.
“The church sees the unfairness in many cases of the long waits and whatever, and [we] try to give as much support to these people who have been through great stress, strain, family disruption.”
CBC News has a request in to Immigration Canada to explain the longer processing time.
Kielly said the average wait for family reunification is usually a year, but families processed through the Nairobi office, as in this case, take an average of 42 months. He said the Nairobi office is responsible for refugees from 12 African countries.