Tigsti, Eritrea

Tigsti met her husband in 1998 and married him in 2002. They had three daughters, born in 2002, 2003 and 2007.
 
Her husband had to flee Eritrea after spending 6 years in prison under indescribable conditions. He managed to reach Israel – a journey through the Sinai Desert that many Eritreans have not survived. He found work, but Israel only issued residence permits for 2 months at a time and without the right to family reunification. In 2017, like thousands of other Eritrean and Sudanese refugees, he was placed in a camp in the desert with the prospect of deportation.
 
Tigsti had left Eritrea and her 3 daughters in 2015 and made the perilous journey through the Sahara, Libya and the Mediterranean. She was granted asylum in Denmark in 2016, but her request to bring her husband and daughters to the country was denied.
 
The initial reason given was that the family had chosen to travel separately and had not maintained contact. Tigsti contacted Refugees Welcome, and we had the case reopened and refuted the Immigration Service's arguments with the help of documentation which we submitted.
 
However, the 3 daughters were unable to leave Eritrea to take the necessary DNA test to prove their relationship with their mother. The Danish authorities refused to consider the father's case alone but did allow an extended deadline for the necessary information on the children's applications to be provided.

Finally, the children managed to get smuggled out of the country and into Ethiopia in November 2017. 5 months later, the letter arrived with permission for the father as well as the daughters. The girls were able to see their mother again after 3 years of separation and their father after a separation of 12 years – the youngest was in fact born after he had fled.