African refugee dad, daughter reunited in Utah for first time since 2004

SALT LAKE CITY — Idris Ismail had a lot to think about Wednesday night as he waited for the flight carrying his 8-year-old daughter, Nura, whom he hadn't seen since he fled his homeland in Africa when she was 2.

Idris was 2 himself when his family fled their native Eritrea in 1976 and became refugees during the 30-year war that led to the country's independence from Ethiopia in 1993.

His family returned to Eritrea that same year, but it would take two more years before Idris could rejoin them.

In 2004, it was Idris' turn to make a difficult fight-or-flight decision. He had been conscripted into service as a border guard, something he described as extremely dangerous and that paid such a low wage it could barely cover the cost of tea or cigarettes — hardly what he needed to support his own wife and daughter.

Idris believed he had to leave in advance of his family in order to eventually get everyone to safety. So he crossed the Red Sea into Saudi Arabia and lived in a refugee camp until he was "assigned" resettlement in the United States — in Utah — in 2006.

"I didn't think one day to be in America," he said.

"It's like a dream." He started learning English, got a job and went to work on immigration petitions so his family could join him.

International Rescue Committee (IRC) immigration coordinator Tatjana Micic said there is no typical time frame for that immigration process, but the time Idris spent wading through international red tape was longer than most.

Five years would pass before he would be at Salt Lake City International Airport waiting for the arrival of Nura's series of flights, which began a day earlier in Sudan.

Weather problems in Chicago on Wednesday started a string of delays that would push the 8:24 p.m. arrival in Salt Lake City past midnight.

The extra time became one of many instances where Idris focused his thoughts on Nura, not the person who is now his ex-wife.

"She didn't be patient," he says regretfully. "My wife she freed up," re-marrying but giving permission for Nura to come to the United States.

Nura, during this five-year refugee resettlement process, lived in Sudan with relatives, not with her mother.

She and her father have talked on the phone often. "Even when I was in camp (in Saudi Arabia), they give me phone. I call her every day."