Group Hopes to Reunite Lost Cat With Refugee Family
The family was forced to leave the cat behind after he escaped.
— -- He may be named for the Greek god Zeus, but Dias the cat and his team of volunteers are faced with a Herculean task: trying to reunite him with his family.
Dias arrived by boat on the shores of Lesvos, Greece, in November 2015 with his owners, who were fleeing ISIS-controlled Mosul, Iraq. When they landed, Dias broke free and ran off.
“The family told the volunteers at the time what had happened and many helped the family search for a fluffy white cat with yellow eyes for hours,” Michelle Nhin, a volunteer with the “Reunite Dias” group, told ABC News.
However, the family was soon forced to move on without their cat. Two of the volunteers, Ashley Anderson and Amy Shrodes, knew the family felt “horrible” that they had to leave.
“It's not cheap for a spot on the dinghy so the family must have loved Dias very much to take him with them," Nhin said.
When Dias showed up in a nearby village three days later, the volunteers decided to do something to help. They launched a social media campaign to share Dias’ story, put out Arabic-translated flyers and created a GoFundMe page to help with veterinary costs.
“Amid all the chaos, suffering and sadness,” the group is “hopeful in reuniting [Dias] with his family," Nhin said.
Although they have not yet located his family, they have found Dias a foster home in Berlin. The group believes they have the best chance of reuniting Dias with his owners in Germany due to the large number of refugees settling there. They plan to continue their search until January 2017, at which point Dias’ foster family will adopt him.