Lelun Afrin
“I never imagined I would cradle my first grandchild in my arms while fleeing our home—dispossessed and terrified, walking into the unknown. At 52, I found myself living a chapter I had never thought life would write for me.”
With these words, Jaylan, a grandmother from Afrin in northern Syria, recounts a story of both devastation and defiance—a story that begins with war and exile, and witnesses the birth of her granddaughter on a cold, chaotic road.
“We are originally from Afrin,” she explains, “a city filled with our childhood, our families, our neighbors. But the war didn’t spare anyone.”
Their first forced displacement came in 2018, when Turkish forces and allied Syrian factions launched Operation Olive Branch. Under intense shelling and widespread abuses, thousands of families—including Jaylan’s—fled. Her family eventually settled in Tel Qarah, in the northern countryside of Aleppo, living in crumbling homes and makeshift camps.
But amid these harsh conditions, came a flicker of hope. “My daughter-in-law, Marwa, became pregnant with our first grandchild. It felt like spring breaking through the heart of autumn.” With little money, Jaylan sewed baby clothes by hand. “Each stitch was a prayer, every piece a wish for peace.”
Yet, before the birth of the child, a new wave of violence struck. In her ninth month of pregnancy, Marwa and her family were once again forced to flee as Turkish-backed factions attacked the Shahba region (Aleppo northern countryside).
“We ran with nothing but the clothes we wore and the fear in our hearts. Marwa was cold, exhausted, clinging to her belly. I sat beside her in the back of an old truck, wiping sweat from her forehead, praying she would survive.”
Hours passed. Then labor began—unexpected and intense. “She screamed in pain. I panicked. I ran from the truck, shouting, ‘Is there a midwife? Anyone who can help?’ But no one answered. The road was filled with terror, silence, and people too broken to respond.”
By the second night, with no help in sight and Marwa collapsing from exhaustion, Jaylan made a desperate decision. She laid a blanket under a tree on the side of the road leading to Deir Hafer, held Marwa’s hand, and prepared to do what no grandmother ever expects: deliver her own grandchild.
“She cried out—not just from pain, but with the primal force of a mother clinging to life. With bare hands and a trembling heart, I caught the baby as she entered a world without safety. We all cried—Marwa, the baby, and me.”
They wrapped the newborn in an old blanket and continued their journey. Eventually, they reached Tabqa, in northern Syria, and were housed in a displacement camp.
There, Marwa’s husband named the baby Jaylan, after her grandmother. “He said, ‘You gave her life. She’s your gift from the universe.’ He cried as he spoke. So did I.”
But safety remained elusive. Aid was delayed, the camp overwhelmed. Jaylan’s granddaughter cried constantly from hunger, while Marwa—still recovering—couldn’t nurse her. There was no formula, no medicine—just water and a little sugar Jaylan had begged from other refugees.
“For seven days, I fed her sugar water, watching her tiny eyes close in fatigue. I kept whispering, ‘Please God, don’t take her now. I delivered her with my own hands—don’t let me lose her.’”
On the seventh day, Marwa’s husband finally managed to find a can of baby formula from the humanitarian aid supplies.
Today, Jaylan looks at her granddaughter as a symbol of resistance and rebirth.
“Every day was a battle for survival. But I clung to her as if she were the only part of me still alive. She was born on the road—between fear and war—but she was born. And that, in itself, was a victory.”