OSCAR Ali puts a human face on the unjustified vitriol some refugees endure from some sections of society.

The then 21-year-old and his family, who are of Kurdish descent, were forced to flee Syria after the country plunged into turmoil in March 2011.

Mr Ali was able to start to re-build his life in Britain four years ago this week.

In that time, he revealed that he still feels "lucky to be alive".

"We lost everything," he said.

"Our school and towns were destroyed.

"I miss Syria and my city a lot as I had grown up there.

"But had we stayed we would have been killed either by Assad's forces or ISIS.

"We are lucky to be alive. I will always be grateful to the UK for taking me in."

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Since moving to Newport in 2015,

Mr Ali has established a popular restaurant - Falafilo Island

- and has now enrolled at Cardiff Metropolitan University.

"I feel safe and everything is getting better in my life since I have been here," he said.

"I have done my second year at Cardiff Met studying Computer Science and am now looking to improve my knowledge

"My Restaurant Falafilo Island, which started last year, is growing slowly and we are always getting great feed back from our customers as we are putting a lot of effort to produce best quality Syrian and Lebanese food."

But the restaurant owner added his wish that he hopes to some day be able to return to Syria.

He said: "I am just hoping for it to be better and if every thing becomes safe I can go back and help my people to re-build the country.

"I miss my home which my family built it."

Syria has been embroiled in a brutal civil war - between government and opposition groups - for eight years. The conflict has caused more than 500,000 deaths and displaced four million people.