After 18 long years of separation, Samuel Habte-Fotto was finally reunited with his family this past spring in Halifax, due in part to the assistance of The Salvation Army.

In 2008, when conflict broke out in his home country of Eritrea, which borders northern Ethiopia, Habte-Fotto fled and sought asylum in Israel under the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). This group works to assist people who have fled their own country because of ongoing conflict or war. Habte-Fotto’s four young children stayed in Eritrea when he became a refugee, and for 14 years they were in the care of extended family.

During that period of separation, Habte-Fotto was in constant contact with his three sons and daughter via phone and video calls and supported them financially by sending the money he earned from working in restaurants. While he was establishing a new life in Israel, he remarried and had three more children, but the four he left in Eritrea always weighed heavily on his heart. He knew that for them to have a better life, he had to get them out of their current situation.

Life in Uganda

In 2021 and 2022, this family experienced important changes that gradually brought them closer together. Habte-Fotto’s eldest son, who had completed an accounting diploma, was of age and therefore required to join Eritrea’s military service, so he and his siblings wanted to leave the country. Due to changes in the immigration policy in Israel, they could not go to their father, but instead, in 2021 they fled to a refugee camp in Uganda. Their ultimate goal was to reconnect with their father and that was the only option they had at that time.

Habte-Fotto’s eldest son, Naeb, reflects on the difficulties of life in the refugee camp: “Life was hard. We didn’t understand the language, have any support or our own house. We rented a small place. The weather was completely different—Eritrea is desert, Uganda is green and wet, and this caused frequent sickness.”

Eventually Naeb and his siblings found people from their own country who helped them when they could, but this help wasn’t always guaranteed.

“The camps weren’t safe at night and the policing wasn’t adequate,” Naeb recalls. “Desperate people would kill someone over $150.” While food was supplied, it was never enough, and they would not have survived without the money sent by their father. 

Window of Opportunity

While in Israel, Habte-Fotto processed his Canadian permanent residence application and, in 2022, with his new wife and three young children, the Habte-Fotto family came to Canada. He included his four refugee children, now aged 15, 17, 19 and 21, on his paperwork. He was determined not to leave them behind.

After arriving in Canada, Habte-Fotto heard about the One Year Window of Opportunity (OYW) program, with the guidance of the Immigrant Services Association of Nova Scotia (ISANS), as well as The Salvation Army.

Atif Khokhar is the settlement co-ordinator at The Salvation Army’s Spryfield Family Resource Centre in Halifax and, in partnership with ISANS, offers free services to newcomers, such as checking eligibilities and completing paperwork for various applications that are needed to establish their lives in Canada. When Khokhar met with Habte-Fotto, they immediately got to work processing an application under the OYW program to reunite him with his grown children who were still refugees in Uganda. The OYW application to reunite a spouse or dependent children must be completed in the first year of arrival in Canada.

With Khokhar’s guidance at the Spryfield Family Resource Centre, Habte-Fotto completed this application and, in 2023, after three years of paperwork and waiting, the approval finally came through. In March 2026, he received an email saying that the application was processed in Nairobi and that his children would be released to come to Canada.

When his children, whom he had not seen in 18 years, were notified, they had to keep this information secret because they could be in danger if the wrong person found out that they held paperwork that would get them out of the camp. 

Together Again

On April 16, 2026, Khokhar accompanied Habte-Fotto, with his wife, Senait, and their children, to the airport to meet the rest of the family: Naeb, Noah and Msghna. His little boys that he hadn’t held in 18 years were now grown men. As life changing as this day was, there was also sadness and loss. Somehow, Habte-Fotto’s daughter was lost to her brothers at the camp in Uganda. Now an older teen, they don’t know where she is and she did not come to Canada with them.

The loss of his daughter grieves Habte-Fotto and his sons, but they are moving forward, now settling into life in Halifax as a newly blended, international family. The search for their sister continues while the boys register for various schools and look for work in this new, free, safe and family-filled world.

Habte-Fotto is grateful for the help provided by Khokhar and The Salvation Army and, through his tears, says there are no words to describe the feeling of reunion. 

Wendy Woodland is the divisional secretary for public relations in the Atlantic Division.