“I WAS a bus driver and had a good life. Before the war everything was good. After the war started I was targeted and my brother was killed and then my nephew was killed.”

By his own admission, Dhea-eldeen Ahmad Ali never wanted to leave Baghdad.

But when his Palestinian roots made him and his family a target for the militias in a lawless Iraq following the allied invasion, it meant they had to flee for their lives.

Mr Ali, wife Zainab Hadi Al Robaie, and their five children, spent the next two years enduring a miserable existence in a desert campsite for refugees on the Iraqi border with Syria.

It was there they had to live with severe weather conditions, from blazing heat to freezing cold, floods and fires, as well as scorpions and snakes.

They were classed by the United Nations as some of the world’s most vulnerable refugees as returning home meant certain death.

Now they are able to look forward with hope for the first time in years after being given a new start in Bolton.

They have been re-homed in the Deane area under the Gateway Protection Programme, a United Nations and Home Office scheme which Bolton Council subscribes to.

The couple are being helped by the charity Refugee Action to rebuild their lives.

They have five children, Noor, aged 11, Om Elbanin, aged nine, Adbul-Rahman, aged four, Ali, aged three and Mohammed, aged one-and-a-half.

Mr Ali, aged 38, said: “I never wanted to leave Baghdad but I had no choice.

“I never blamed Britain or America for my position. I blamed the militias.

“In the camp the conditions were indescribable. There were scorpions, snakes, flies and because it was in the desert it was so hot. We had really given up.”

The family were chosen to be re-homed and arrived in Bolton in mid-December. They celebrated Christmas for the first time to try and fit in and are looking forward to 2010.

Mr Ali said: “I had never heard of Bolton, though I had heard of Manchester, Liverpool and London.

“When we arrived we thought the town was beautiful, and the most important thing was that the people were so friendly.

“We want to celebrate Christmas from now on. We are quite new to snow and it has surprised us.

“In 2010 we firstly want to experience freedom. I want to be maybe a bus or taxi driver and we are determined to learn English. The first thing I want to do is to make sure my children are OK. I want to say a big thank you to everyone.

“We were forced to come here. I never wanted to leave my country where I had a nice life and a job. But we want to blend in.”

The couple and their children were among 50 refugees who arrived in Bolton last month, following 31 people who came in July.

Like Mr Ali, they all have a story to tell.

cherry.thomas@theboltonnews.co.uk