“I was told I’d die in prison — but I lived to tell my story”

By Fatima

My name is Fatima, a woman in her fifties. I was born and raised among the olive trees of a quiet village in Afrin, northwestern Syria, where peace wrapped around us like a soft breeze and beauty lived in even the most modest corners. We had little, but it was enough. Our home, made of stone and clay, sheltered my husband, our children, and me. We shared bread, laughter, and the kind of warmth that cannot be bought—built from dignity, love, and a refusal to surrender to hardship.

My husband, the pillar of our small world, began to falter under the weight of life’s burdens. Illness forced him to stop working, and our daughters stepped in, rising with the sun to labor in the fields. They returned each day with dusty feet but bright laughter, their spirits defying the struggle. I watched them with pride and pain—the pain of a mother who could not ease her children’s path. Still, our home pulsed with joy, lit by love and defiance.

Years passed, and my daughters married. I remained at home with my husband, our younger children, and my youngest daughter, my shadow and solace. Then came the winter of 2018, a night that tore through the fabric of our lives.

It was a cold, gray evening. Tension blanketed the village after factions of the Syrian National Army had taken control. My husband stepped out to gather firewood while the children huddled around a phone, their squabbles filling the air. Overwhelmed by stress and frustration, I grabbed the phone and smashed it—an impulsive act that would rewrite the course of my life.

Moments later, strangers stormed through our door. Cold and aggressive, they interrogated me about the phone. I pleaded with them, explained, cried—but they remained unmoved. They tore me away from my children and blindfolded me.

That night marked the beginning of my torment. I was thrown into a cell where the sun never shone. Torture became routine—beatings, electric shocks, crude insults that chipped away at my soul. For fifteen days, I endured this darkness. Then I was transferred to another prison and placed in solitary confinement, where hunger gnawed at my body, and humiliation rang out like a daily alarm.

One day, a man looked at me through glassy eyes and said coldly, “Confess, and you’ll be spared.” But I had nothing to confess. My silence enraged him. He ordered the use of the “dulab”—a torture method involving forced contortion. Pain became my only companion until I lost consciousness.

I awoke in a room packed with women and, in one corner, a child no older than six, his eyes asking questions too cruel for his age. I stayed there a month before being taken to court.

In court, the judge asked me, “Why are you here?” I told the truth, but he shouted, “You’re lying!” Then came the sentence: ten years in prison. My knees buckled. I collapsed. They placed a pill under my tongue to calm what felt like a heart attack. “You will live to serve every day of your sentence,” the judge declared.

So I lived—behind those cold walls, surviving on memories of my children’s laughter and my husband’s face, fading yet bright in my mind. After four years, I was summoned back to court. The judge sneered, “How are you?” Before I could respond, he told me: “Your husband is blind.” The words struck like lightning. I fainted and awoke in a dark cell, lost and broken.

A year later, I heard a voice call my name: “Fatima, you’re being released.” I didn’t believe it until they blindfolded me again, drove me away, and left me on the side of the road. When I touched the earth with my hands, I knew—it was true. I was free.

I returned to my village. A car stopped for me, and my heart raced as I approached the door of my old home. A young man answered. I didn’t recognize him until he smiled and called out, “Mom?” I collapsed into his arms in tears.

Inside, I found my husband—frail, lying quietly. I held him, and he said, “I missed your beautiful face, but I can no longer see you.” His health had deteriorated while I was gone. He had gone blind, a victim of his chronic illness and our long separation.

I had come home a stranger. My children had grown. My world had aged without me. But still, I stand.

I carry my scars like medals. I fight—for my children, for the home that still holds our shared sacrifices. My story remains, living proof that injustice may sentence us, but it cannot silence us.

One day, justice will rise—if not from the courts of men, then from the heavens above.