The family of the Syrian boy who made headlines in Britain after a video of schoolyard bullying went viral has revealed their ordeal is continuing five months after the attack as the state has failed to return Jamal Hijazi to full-time education.
The father of the refugee Syrian has said the forced relocation of the family after receiving death threats has failed to resolve their problems and that he has “only known racism” from the far-right in the UK.
Having fled the civil war in Syria and arrived in the UK through a refugee resettlement scheme in 2016, 39-year-old father of three Jihad Hijazi has since been rendered disabled and unable to earn a living.
Speaking to a journalist, Mr Hijazi lamented that while Christians and Muslims could “happily co-exist” in Syria, his experience of life in Britain has been nothing short of pain and suffering since having to flee Huddersfield.
In a video with almost 20 million views, Jamal is seen to be physically and verbally attacked by fellow pupils before walking off. Prime Minister Theresa May condemned the attack and donations poured in to help the family.
In the following days, far-right activist Tommy Robinson spread a counter-story about Jamal, resulting in his supporters sending threats to the family.
“If the UK doesn’t like refugees, why do you bring them here?” the father, Jihad, asked. “I ask myself this all the time.”
Mr Hijazi said local police told him to “shut your windows, close your doors”, and to not let anyone inside. This, he said, led to a downward spiral of installing CCTV cameras and refusing to sleep at night.
“It was clear we needed to move,” he said. “My children couldn’t go out and live their lives, they couldn’t make friends.”
Five months since the video of his son went viral and having to move to a secret location, Jamal is still looking for a full-time placement at a school needed for him to take GCSE exams this summer. The teenager currently attends English language lessons at a college every afternoon with adults while he waits for a placement.
Almondbury Community School, where Jamal had previously been and the scene of the recorded attack, is under threat of closure as regulators prepare a ruling over its failure to protect the pupil and his family.
The family’s lawyer accused both the school and local authorities of ignoring pleas by the family to deal with bullying. “The teachers reported what happened to the head teacher, and they were saying we will deal with it, but nothing would ever happen,” said Tasnime Akunjee.
In 2015, the UK went from taking 750 refugees a year to taking 5,000. The number of hate crime incidents recorded in the UK has dramatically risen since 2016, but experts say where it will happen is impossible to predict.
“It’s the area of our work that causes us the most distress and we are seeing more and more incidents,” said Refugee Action.
