For the first time in three years on Sunday, a 14-year old Eritrean migrant will be spending Mother’s Day with his mother.

Amanuel Tekle Sium was reunited with his mother Asefash in Malta last week, more than a year after escaping from Eritrea in search of her, travelling alone through Sudan and Libya and across the Mediterranean.

“She’s my world. Every time I thought about her, I knew I would go find her,” says Amanuel, his mother sitting alongside him.

Asefash arrived in Malta alone in 2013, a few years after her husband passed away, hoping to create a better life that she would one day be able to share with her children.

“She knew our life without her would be difficult, but she didn’t have a choice. If she had stayed, we wouldn’t have any life at all,” says Amanuel, turning his head away as his eyes begin to water.

“My life without her was so difficult. I had to escape. I just kept thinking: if I find her, I can have a perfect life.”

For years, Amanuel had no information on his mother’s whereabouts. It was only once he left Eritrea that he discovered she was living in Malta.

All I want is for us to stay together

His own journey, however, ended in Ferrara, Italy, last February, after his boat encountered mechanical difficulties crossing the Mediterranean and was rescued by the Italian Coast Guard.

Haben Amaniel was reunited with his mother, Freweyne Okbe, in Malta last Saturday . The pair fled Eritrea in 2010 and travelled to Sudan, then Italy. But while there, Haben was abducted by his uncle.

“The next day at 7am, his mother was behind the door of the Emigrants Commission asking for help to contact her son and bring him over to Malta,” says Fr Philip Calleja, who coordinated the process.

That process involved collaboration between the UNHCR, the police, the Refugee Commissioner and the director of the Asylum Seekers Welfare Agency – but just over two months later, Amanuel and his mother were tearfully reunited at Malta’s airport.

“Now I’m so glad,” says Amanuel. “I live with my mother. That’s my dream.”

Amanuel is one of four migrants who have been reunited with lost family members in the last year.

Seventeen-year-old Haben Amaniel, who just last Saturday was also reunited with his mother in Malta, is another.

Haben and his mother, Freweyne Okbe, fled Eritrea in 2010 and travelled to Sudan, then Italy. But while there, Haben was abducted by his uncle, apparently out of anger towards his mother, and taken to the Netherlands, where he spent three years in a foster home, lost in the system.

“Being away from your mother is always difficult, but I was also in another country, in another home, with other people, with no way to contact her,” says Haben.

“I was crying every day, asking everyone I could about him,” says Freweyne, who arrived in Malta from Italy in 2013. “One day somebody told me he was in Holland, and asked for the telephone straight away.”

According to Fr Calleja, the foster home manager was eager to facilitate the reunion once he could be assured that the Maltese authorities would give their approval.

Now sitting with his mother in Malta, Haben is unsure of what the future holds, but feels lucky just to be here.

“All I want is for us to stay together,” he says.