After he lost his ability to walk by “regime forces’” fire, a Syrian citizen tells the “Syrian Observatory” his suffering with displacement in search of safe and security
From one displacement to another, pages of the life of A.M. have folded, the 46-year-old Syrian citizen ended up in a small tent in Qah town north of Idlib, after he was injured and stayed in bed. He supports 5 children but -as he describes his condition- is unable to support them. In his testimony to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, A.M. details his life in years of the Syrian events and his suffering, saying: “I was born in al-Jerniyyeh village in the western countryside of Hama, I did not complete my studies because of the living conditions of the family, I studied only until the 6th grade of primary school and then I continued my life as an assistant to my father in the farming profession. I participated like the rest of people of my village from the beginning of the events in the demonstrations that came out demanding freedom and the overthrow of the regime, there was no other goal but to get our freedom and replace the regime that ruled the country with iron and fire for many years, until that day I was on a date with my injury, in late 2012, the village was heavily shelled by heavy machine guns of the regime forces who were positioned in al-Suqaylabiyah city west of the village, where I was shot in the lower back.”
“I was rescued at the village health center then transferred to the National Hospital in Hama City, where I underwent a shooting procedure and stayed in bed inside the hospital for a month, meanwhile, a large number of my relatives came out of the village towards the Syrian north, but I went out of the hospital to the house after I knew that I became unable to walk, and I remained in the village until the regime forces took control of it and stormed it in 2013, where my family and I moved from it towards Qal’aat al-Madiq town, and I stayed at the home of a resident of the town for 4 months then moved to al-Shariya village of Sahl al-Ghab at the western countryside of Hama, where I stayed until the last displacement in April 2019, and I stayed during this long period in a house owned by a villager without any charge, despite the simplicity and poverty of the villagers; they really received us well and shared everything they had. During these years, the village was subjected to a lot of shelling, but I had no desire to get out of it to another area, until the date of the last displacement came, which is the largest of its kind, where the village and all the surrounding villages were subjected to heavy aerial and ground bombardment by the regime forces and the militiamen loyal to them, forcing residents of the village to gradually displace from it, so my family and I went to the north of Syria, looking for a new shelter for us, this time in Qah town in the northern Idlib countryside we stayed, under a worn-out tent that does not have the slightest necessities of a decent life.”
He added: “I suffer in this tent from very difficult living conditions, as the tent was already used for 4 years where I bought it from one of the displaced people from the eastern countryside of Hama for 45 thousand Syrian pounds, and with the entry of winter it will not protect us from the cold or rain, also the floor of the tent is dirt and I did not have the capacity to prepare it. Me, my wife and children sit there, and we have made part of it dedicated to bathing and kitchen, and we all sleep inside it, and I suffer from the lack of toilet for me that meet my need, and I am forced to travel a distance in a wheelchair to reach toilets of the camp’s residents, and we are suffering from a major crisis in drinking water, knowing that drinking water rations are distributed every 15 days by one of the organizations, but it is not enough to meet the needs of the family, and we have to buy water through the tanks at a high price, and no kind of food or medical or cleaning assistance was delivered, so my physical condition began to get worse to the point that I sold a piece of gold belongs to my wife to spend it on the needs of the family, and as winter approaches, we need heating and I don’t know how I can secure it, and the school year has entered and I couldn’t send my children to school.”
He appealed to all humanitarian organizations and charitable organizations to help him through the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, he said, “I can no longer afford the cost of living of my family, I appeal to all humanitarian organizations working in Syrian north to help me and my family, improve my living reality, and -above all- we need heating materials for the winter, as well as replacing the tent, drinking water, and food.”