A refugee family have celebrated their first festive season safely together in two and a half years after the Home Office abandoned threats to deport three of them because they arrived in the UK on a small boat. The Hareth family – mother, Ferdowz, and father, Hussein, both 55, Hamzah, 27, Hassan, 25, Hazem, 24, and Azzam, 14, fled war in Yemen, but had very different journeys to the UK and contrasting experiences of dealing with the Home Office even though their circumstances were identical. All had fled the same war, initially living in a Gulf state after leaving Yemen and then fleeing that country after being threatened with being returned to Yemen. Hussein obtained a visa to come to the UK, travelled to Britain by plane, claimed asylum and was granted refugee status. Ferdowz and Azzam were later granted the right to join him in Manchester under refugee family reunion rules. However, the three adult brothers, Hamzah, Hassan and Hazem were unable to obtain visas to travel to the UK and so had no choice but to use smugglers who charged them £3,000 each. They were taken on a convoluted journey by the smugglers from Turkey to Ecuador by plane and then from Ecuador to Spain on another flight. From there they travelled to Calais and crossed the Channel in a dinghy on the third attempt. At one point one of the three slipped out of the dinghy into the water and was rescued from drowning by his brothers. The three brothers’ journey took a year, that of their parents and younger brother a matter of hours. Hussein said he was consumed with guilt that his journey was so quick and easy while his sons’ journey was so protracted and dangerous. Just weeks after the three brothers arrived in the UK in 2020, the Home Office arrested them, placed them in Brook House immigration removal centre near Gatwick and told them they were going to be forcibly removed to Spain – a safe country they had passed through on the way to the UK. They received a last-minute reprieve and the Home Office agreed to reconsider their cases in the UK rather than forcibly removing them to Spain. Just before Christmas the brothers received the news from the Home Office that all three had been granted refugee status. The family are able to celebrate the festive season together for the first time without fear of being forcibly split up. “When the Home Office put us in the detention centre, we got so much support from charities and British people. They really welcomed us. Now we have got refugee status and our family can stay together we are overjoyed,” said Hassan. “Our friends are urging us to have a big celebration party and to cook lots of meat and rice. We feel so proud now to be part of the UK. We are planning a trip to London to go and see Big Ben. We are so grateful to everyone who has helped us human being to human being.” The three brothers are now studying, two are volunteering with the charity FareShare and the third is volunteering as an Arabic interpreter with an advice charity. The brothers’ lawyer, Hannah Baynes of Duncan Lewis solicitors, said: “I am delighted that, after two and a half years in the UK, Hamzah, Hassan and Hazem have been recognised as refugees by the Home Office. We are pleased that now the entire family can move on with their lives in the UK.” The Home Office said: “We do not routinely comment on individual cases.”