MCC also is calling on U.S. lawmakers to oppose military intervention in Iraq and instead to send humanitarian aid for the U.N.-estimated 1.9 million internally displaced people, or IDPs, in the country.
She was returning from a regional staff retreat in Spain on May 29 when Israeli authorities detained her at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport.
According to an MCC Washington Office report, Friesen was detained for more than 30 hours, which included three sessions of interrogation. She was returned to Barcelona, where she was met by MCC colleagues before making her way back to Canada.
More than five months ago, she quit school when fighting between government and opposition forces began in her family’s Aleppo neighborhood. She and her family hid in the basement as the bombs fell. One day her father, a builder, went out to get some bread and never came home.
“To this day, we have no news of him,” said Damaris, who fled to Lebanon with her mother, aunt, grandfather (who has a heart condition) and four siblings.
