In a surprise move one year ago, the pontiff flew back to Rome with a group of Syrian asylum seekers, all Muslims, at the end of his visit to Lesbos in April, to highlight the refugee crisis. 32 year old Nour Essa and her family were among them. The young biologist had fled war-torn Syria together with her husband Hassa Zaheda and her two-year old son Riad. They ended up in the Kara Tepe camp in Lesbos, possibly facing deportation from the Greek island. Essa's life changed in a matter of minutes after a group of volunteers asked her if she wanted to leave for Italy on April 16, 2016. The volunteers told her that she needed to decide immediately, without providing further information. She said yes, hoping for a better future for her toddler. A day later, she and her family were on a plane with the pope, who took 12 Syrian refugees, including six minors, back to the Vatican. All those taken from the camp were Syrian Muslims who had reached Lesbos before a deportation deal between the EU and Turkey on returning migrants who cross the Aegean Sea to Greece came into effect. Essa did not speak a word of Italian and had no idea of what the future had in store but she was well aware of what she was leaving behind, she says. Nour Essa is now fluent in Italian, after attending language courses organized by the Catholic Community of Sant'Egidio, based in the Trastevere district of Rome. She is studying at the Roma Tre University so that her Syrian university degree in biology will be recognized in Italy. Job in a hospital She has recently started working for the Bambin Gesù pediatric hospital, where she is employed in a laboratory diagnosing cystic fibrosis. She said her son is happy in nursery school and has made friends after an initial difficult phase. He is also fluent in Italian. Husband Hassan Zaheda is a landscape architect who occasionally finds employment as a warehouse worker. They decided to leave Syria because her husband had been called to serve in the army. ''He could have gone to dangerous places'', she says. ''We did not want to become part of this war, possibly killing someone or being killed, we were neither with the regime nor with the Islamists. We had no other choice but to flee Syria.” The family is currently living in an apartment provided for free by the Community of Sant'Egidio until they can support themselves. ''Now I dream about a normal childhood for my son.” Feeling offended Nour Essa has many memories of the flight from Lesbos to Rome. She remembers getting acquainted with the pontiff, ''a man who uses religion to serve human beings, not to control them''. She also remembers eating her first dish of lasagna, saying it was the best she has ever eaten. Yes she also remembers feeling offended after a journalist reportedly asked the Pope during an in-flight press conference whether he was afraid that taking a few Muslim families with him could “threaten Europe's Christian culture”. Essa said the pope answered at length, ''explaining how it is unfair to make a distinction between Christians and Muslims because they are all equal as human beings''. One year later, Nour wants to stress that ''we are not terrorists, we can't scare anyone''. ''We are people just like you; we had a normal life like you, a home, a job. The war swept everything away.”

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