a day ago
Between exile and memory: Arab refugees mark Eid with silent longing
Shafaq News/ On Eid mornings, before the scent of coffee drifts through the air, another fragrance arrives first—memory. For millions of displaced Arabs, this festive season is no longer a celebration, but a quiet reckoning with loss.
In cities like Baghdad, Beirut, and Amman, where thousands from Yemen, Syria, and Palestine have sought shelter, Eid has become a bittersweet ritual, marked less by joy than by longing.
Baghdad: A Yemeni Eid with No Knock at the Door
In a modest Baghdad neighborhood, 24-year-old Amal Abdullah prepares for her seventh Eid in exile. She left Sanaa with her family, fleeing a war that swallowed her childhood streets.
'My first Eid in Baghdad was like waking up in a stranger's house,' she told Shafaq News. 'I walked around hoping to feel that spirit we had back home—decorating with my siblings, baking maamoul, hearing the neighbors laugh—but here, everything is quiet. Too quiet.'
Though she acknowledges Iraq's relative safety, Amal says the absence of community rituals leaves a painful void. 'No one knocks on our door in the morning. No one offers sweets. Even the mosques feel muted; we don't hear the Eid takbeerat like we did in Sanaa. My children are growing up with this silence. That hurts the most.'
Amal tries to recreate fragments of home by cooking Yemeni dishes and visiting fellow refugees. 'But the joy,' she sighs, 'is always incomplete. A happiness laced with sorrow.'
Beirut: A Syrian Eid Behind Closed Curtains
In the outskirts of Beirut, Khaled al-Homsi, a 39-year-old refugee from Damascus, recalls Eid mornings in Syria as a sensory mosaic.
'The streets were alive. The smell of fresh bread, the buzz in the markets, the kids running around in new clothes,' he said. 'Now, it's just us and four walls. No relatives, no visits, no laughter.'
His children's questions pierce him the most: 'Why don't we have guests like the neighbors? Why can't we go see grandma?' 'I don't have answers,' he said. 'Sometimes I lie. I say it's just for now, that we'll return soon.'
Despite the crowds of Beirut, Khaled feels isolated. 'We're surrounded by people, but we live as ghosts. We can't work freely, we barely go out. I spend Eid trying not to fall apart.'
Amman: A Palestinian Eid Through a Glass Pane
In a neighborhood of Amman, Abu Muhammad al-Najjar, a 52-year-old refugee from Gaza, likens Eid in exile to watching a former life through a train window.
'In Gaza, Eid began the night before. We cleaned the streets, baked sweets, wrapped presents. Now I wake up, pray, give my children their eidiyyah (money), then check my phone to make sure no one I love has died under the bombs.'
What haunts him most is the feeling of futility. 'We laugh so our kids don't cry. We dress nicely so the neighbors won't see our despair. But inside, we're crushed. We have no country to return to, no clarity in this life here.'
Still, he clings to hope. 'Each time I hear the takbeer at dawn, I imagine myself walking the alleys of Gaza again. That dream is all I have left.'
One Pain, Many Dialects
Ruba al-Saqqa, a social worker who supports refugees across the Arab world, told Shafaq News that Eid often intensifies psychological distress among the displaced.
'Festivals reignite memories of everything lost—homes, family rituals, a sense of belonging. That's why we see spikes in anxiety and depression during these times,' she explained.
Regardless of their backgrounds, Ruba finds a common thread: 'Different accents, same ache. Every displaced person I meet feels like they're living half a holiday, caught between a homeland that's gone and a present that doesn't embrace them.'
In their final remarks, each refugee shared the same wish—not wealth, not comfort, but home.
'I just want one Eid in Damascus,' Khaled whispered. 'To kiss my mother's hand again, to hand out eidiyyah to my siblings like we used to.'
Amal echoed him from Baghdad: 'Every year, on the first day of Eid, I ask God for one thing: to celebrate in Yemen again. On my soil. With my people. Like I did when I was a child.'
