Fate lends a hand to Syrian migrant tripped by Hungarian reporter

BARCELONA, Spain – Fate stepped in this week, after a Hungarian camerawoman who tripped a Syrian refugee as he and other desperate migrants stormed out of a holding camp was fired, but the man she felled was offered employment in Spain.

Osama Abdul Mohsen, 52, is on his way to a new job with Spain´s National Soccer Coach Training Center (Cenafe).

He was hired after a video of the tripping incident went viral on the Internet, making news headlines and pouring a deluge of social media attacks on Petra Laszlo, the Hungarian camerawoman seen tripping the hapless refugees as they dash across an open field.

The Spanish football academy decided to hire Mohsen after learning he used to be a coach for a first-division team in Syria.

“We are a center for coaches and we like to help everyone who works in this field,” Spanish media on Thursday quoted Cenafe head Conrado Galan as saying.

The video shows Mohsen carrying his seven-year-old son Zaid as they break out of a Hungarian camp with dozens of other desperate migrants trying to get to Germany on September 8. 

A camerawoman who is in the middle of the chaos is seen tripping the pair, and several others. Laszlo, who worked for an anti-immigration far-right Hungarian TV station, was fired immediately.

Spain’s El Pais newspaper said that Mohsen’s new employers had sent an Arabic speaking person to Munich to bring back their newest recruit, together with his two children.

“We have used money from our advertising budget to pay for an apartment in Getafe (a Madrid suburb) where he will be able to stay,” the Cenafe director explained.

Mohsen’s wife and two other children are still in Turkey, where the family had been for a year after escaping the war in Syria. But Cenafe said that next week it would make efforts to bring the entire family to Spain. 

“When we saw Mohsen’s story published in the newspapers we felt very bad about it,” explained Galan. “As soon as he learns Spanish, we plan to offer him a job at our organization.”

Mohsen arrived in Munich with Zaid, after escaping the war that has been raging in Syria since 2011. In Germany he was reunited with another of his children, aged 18, who emigrated ahead of the rest of the family. 

Laszlo apologized for what she did. But in an interview with CNN before he was offered a job, Mohsen warned the Hungarian that  fate would step in to make things right.

"I tell her, be sure you Hungarian journalist that karma will get back to you, and God will not leave this be."