Lelun Afrin
I am now in my mid-forties, a mother of four children, three boys and a girl. I now live in Aleppo city, after we were displaced from my village, as a result of our trip to the “Shahba” area before that, and because of my husband’s health condition, which forced us to move.
Man doesn’t know what he has to say to describe the amount of pain he/she suffered from the bitterness and pain of displacement. It is a story that pained every listener and reader, as well as those who saw it, as soon as I talk about the story of the pain I suffered during the period of displacement. I told just a few part of what our people suffering during that difficult period.
I do not know how to arrange the words, and where to start and what I have to say to describe the amount of pain that dominates my heart, because emotions overcome me as soon as I tell you about the injustice days and how our conditions have changed from the dwellings of heaven to the state of dark hell. But I still pray that the justice of heaven will be fair to us one day and that everyone who has a right will return to his right.
As for my life and my previous days, I used to live in a village considered one of the most beautiful villages in Afrin, and it was a destination for tourists from all Syrian governorates. We owned a tourist resort, meadows and fields. My husband was a well-known cook, my three sons run the resort with their uncles and sons of the family, and my only daughter is engaged.
My house was overlooking the main road to Afrin city. I used to see many strange faces, especially during the Syrian war. Cars loaded with belongings of the displaced and strangers from other Syrian regions. I was feeling sorry for the state the country had come to, but I never expected that the situation would turn against us. Our heavens become the possession of the stranger while we are in the ruins of homes.
The difference is that we hosted tens of thousands of displaced people with love in the vastness of our land, then we were forced to flee after the factions and some of their families robbed us and seized whatever came and went of our property, in addition to that they displaced us from our homes!
During the start of the Turkish military operation, our village was close to the place of the attack, because our village is located at the bottom of Jabal al-Ahlam (The Mountain of Dreams), which is the corridor between Afrin and the farewell road. It was really so, because when we went to that mountain to leave, it was the last day of farewell, and that mountain had no part in its name, “Mountain of Dreams”, on the contrary, it was a nightmare for us and for everyone who crossed that mountain.
Every day we were seeing those sad faces walking in pain toward that mountain, as if the sky was taking revenge on every passing person.
Day after day, we decided to move to the countryside of Shahba, which is located close to Afrin, after the situation destroyed and large movement of displacement that the region witnessed. We decided to leave on 1st March 2018, to join the people there for a temporary period until this nightmare ends, and to return again as soon as the situation calms down. We rented a large villa with several families from the village and my daughter’s fiancé’s family, but unfortunately, the unexpected happened. The last farewell convoy arrived and it was announced that Turkish forces had taken control of Afrin on 18th March 2018.
After several days had passed, some members of the family took the decision to return to the village to manage their property in the hope that we would join them later. This was after promoting by some of the people that the factions do not harm anyone and do not intend to harm any Kurd. but rather encourage the people to return. Some men, accompanied by my daughter’s fiancé, returned to the village, and after their arrival, they called my husband to convince him to return that the factions present there, “Al-Hamza Division,” do not harm anyone, and this is what actually happened.
My husband, accompanied by my only daughter, set off towards the village, and a few days after their arrival, things were almost normal, and there were no significant violations. My daughter’s fiancé were visiting our house, but as soon as he got there, a member of the “Hamza” faction pinned the charge of espionage on the house of the leader of the faction, nicknamed “the Emir.” So, he was arrested, beaten and tortured, and after my husband went to him to investigate his situation, he was arrested too and they put him into prison, but my daughter’s fiancé was later released, and my husband remained in detention.
After investigation, follow-up, and inquiries, it became clear that the Hamza Division accused him of “dealing with the Autonomous Administration” and demanded nine thousand dollars in return for his release (as a ransom), so we paid the ransom after borrowing it from my daughter’s fiancé, and he was released after that.
At that time, my only daughter was alone in the village and her fiancé decided to marry her without an official wedding ceremony, so that she would not be left alone. It is the matter that I could not control myself with, I felt that it was a spiritual consolation and not a wedding for my only daughter, and we agreed that she should live in the care of her husband for fear that any harm would happen to her from the factions’ members.
After my husband was released from prison, he decided to leave the village and arrived in the areas of Shahba while he was in a bad psychological and nervous condition as a result of the torture he was subjected to. He was suffering from hysterics, fear and constant insomnia. At that time, we decided to come to Aleppo with the intention of treatment, and until today he is in the same condition and his health has not improved.
I never realized that I would live through this suffering and be exposed to this amount of pain and heartbreak for what I was. The luxury and richness that I used to have in my village makes me regret every moment of bliss that I lived and whose value I did not know at the time, but it is the state of the world.