Defying All Odds, a Cat Rejoins Its Iraqi Refugee Family in Norway

The incredible story of a lost cat that was reunited on Thursday with its Iraqi refugee family has made its way around the world through news sites and social media after Doug Kuntz, an East Hampton resident, delivered the white feline, in a Burberry plaid carrier, to its family, a widow with five children, at their new home in Norway four months after it was lost.

Mr. Kuntz, a photojournalist, has been covering the refugee crisis in Europe on trips to Lesbos, Greece, and other locations since the fall. “The odds of finding that family – they were a million to one,” Mr. Kuntz said by phone from Norway on Friday.

Fleeing ISIS-controlled Mosul, the Iraqi widow and her children found it impossible to abandon their cat, which they called Kunkush. On a 10-day journey, largely on foot, they carried it in a lidded basket from Iraq to Turkey and in a rubber dinghy across the Aegean Sea to Greece. To bring the cat along, the family had to pay smugglers an additional 1,000 euro fare.

Landing on the shore in Skala Sikaminea, a shorefront village on Lesbos, where Mr. Kuntz had become part of a community of international volunteers providing services for refugees, the male cat got frightened, jumped out of its basket, and ran away.

The heartbroken family searched for it with the help of volunteers but finally was forced to move on to a refugee camp without their beloved pet. They were devastated.

The little hamlet of Skala is colonized by feral cats, a roving group of animals that prowl the harbor full of fishing boats and meow and wind their way among the café tables set on cobblestones near the shore. One day, about three days after the Iraqi family had left, a matted, bedraggled white cat was spotted sitting on its own a distance from the group. It was Kunkush.

Amy Shrodes, an American volunteer from Michigan, took the cat home and, not knowing its name, dubbed it Dias, a translation of the Greek god Zeus.

After vet care and some T.L.C., including lots of attention from a Greek landlord, Dias regained its vigor. Ms. Shrodes and Ashley Anderson, another volunteer, set their will on achieving an unlikely success – finding the cat’s owners and reuniting them with their cat.

A Facebook page, Reunite Dias, went up; posters were printed in Arabic, Farsi, and English and distributed. In the voice of the cat they read, in part: “I am sure my family is in Europe and with your help I can be reunited with them again. My family sacrificed a lot for me to escape with them so I know they love me a lot! We need to stick together, we have been through enough and I really miss them.”

The page got 2,000 likes, and information was disseminated there as well as through Twitter, using the hashtag #refugeecat. A rescue group in Athens sent Dias a sweater and treats.

As efforts continued to find the cat’s family, Ms. Shrodes found a foster mother to place it with in Berlin. As most refugees continue their journey from Greece north to other European countries, often ending up in Germany, that seemed like a good next step for Dias.

After obtaining a pet passport for Dias, Ms. Shrodes flew with it to Germany on Jan. 4.

In Berlin, Dias continued a transformation from a scruffy, grayish waif into a healthy looking, pampered pet. It finished a course of medicine and was photographed, white and fluffy, on a pillow looking out a window onto a snowy scene, and perched on an embroidered blue cushion, playing with a ball of yarn with his paw. The foster mom pledged to keep it while the search continued, and to adopt it permanently if it was unsuccessful.

Social media continued to spread the word about the lost white cat with yellow eyes, and on Feb. 12, the Iraqi family was found. Viewing photos sent by email, they confirmed he was their pet, and revealed the cat’s real name, Kunkush.

On Feb. 15, through Skype, the cat and its family once again came (virtually) face to face. “Kunkush was looking behind the computer, trying to find the people” whose voices it was hearing, his caretakers wrote on his Facebook page.

Mr. Kuntz, once again in Greece, was enlisted to bring Dias to Norway.

Scheduled to take a direct flight from Berlin to a local Norway airport, Mr. Kuntz learned upon check-in that the airline would not allow Kunkush, even in a carrier, to fly in the cabin of the plane. Unwilling to relinquish the cat to the cargo hold, he forfeited that ticket and booked a flight to Oslo on another airline. From there, he would have to take a second flight, rent a car,  and drive to the family’s town.

Check-in for that flight was a bit bumpy too, Mr. Kuntz said. Airline personnel were at first unconvinced that Kunkush’s carrier met a minimum size criteria. A conversation with the airline clerk attracted attention and support from fellow passengers, and after Kunkush demonstrated the carrier was large enough for him to turn around in, the clerk relented.

Arriving with Kunkush at the family’s house, with a videographer from Britain’s The Guardian in tow, was “probably one of the most emotional moments of my life,” Mr. Kuntz said. “Everyone was crying.”

“It was more than a cat; it was this woman and her family, “ he said, “a smaller part of the bigger picture.” With the media coverage and widespread sharing of Kunkush’s story, he said, “maybe this is what we need for people to pay attention to this. “

“In a global situation – the components of which are misery, pain, drowning, and war, the whole thing is very sad,” he said. “This was the one bright spot, and it was very bright. This story is about a cat,” he said, “but it’s a big chance to look at this in a more human way, what’s happening to these people.”

The successful reunion has clearly touched the hearts of many, judging by the social media comments and sharing of the story.

“In a small way, his journey represents the plight of all who are seeking a better life,” its rescuers wrote on the cat's Facebook page. “We need each other.”

“He didn't go unnoticed, and will not be forgotten about,” they went on. “In the words of Rick Yancey , ‘One, even the smallest, weakest, most insignificant one, matters.’ We can make a difference, one being at a time.”