My warmest and most sincere greetings to all of you, my dear sisters. I have already told you several stories about my experiences in the refugee camp in Syria, but I have not told you yet about how it all began, how I ended up in the camp. The morning we surrendered ourselves, we gathered a few belongings and we set out to an unknown destination. At first, we had to stay in a not very large pick-up truck. We climbed into the car, which was already crowded by a lot of Syrians, and the truck started moving, on a road that would prove to be long and difficult. I don’t remember exactly for how long we were moving, but I do remember, we were moving very fast, and the driver was constantly zigzagging in order to avoid getting hit by a missile. Suddenly, the truck stopped and we had to get out in an open field and walk on foot for another 5 km. Approximately 3 hours later, we saw in front of us a mountain that we had to climb and on top of which there were soldiers waiting for us. We had to surrender ourselves to them. As we approached the group of soldiers, we were greeted by some men that took us to another car. The car started moving to yet another unknown location. We were approached by one of the commanding officers, who started talking to my husband after he saw how upset and sad my husband was. I forgot to mention that we were all still together, my husband, my children and I. The officer asked several questions about us, who we were, where did we came from originally, how we ended up in Syria. It seemed that he had taken a liking to us. This later helped me and my children to avoid a near disaster.
After a while, we stopped in a large open space, where there was a very large tent set up. My husband was moved to another car and taken away without being given a chance to say goodbye to us. The children were all crying, it was awful, and the lack of certainty was exhausting us, literally we felt like we were all dying of anguish. In this large open space where the tent was set up there were a lot of American soldiers. They were calling us by our names, taking photographs of all of us and inspecting each item of our personal belongings. When they finished this entire process, they made us wait. We waited for nearly an entire day. It was cold, and there were no places where you could sit down, not to mention lie down. After we stood there for a whole night, another car arrived and picked us up to drive us to a third unknown location. Several men and women soldiers accompanied us in this car and after a short distance, the car stopped, the soldiers got out and started laughing and yelling at us in a language I did not understand, while pointing with their hands towards the side of the vehicle. As far as I could make out from their whole behavior, they were trying to make us run away, but we were in the middle of nowhere, with nothing in sight to run towards to. Much later did I realize that, most probably, they were planning to shoot and kill us the moment we would make a move to try and escape or run away.
We were in a perpetual state of fear as the soldiers continued to yell and shout at us in a language we could not understand. By the Will of Allah Almighty, after approximately 10 minutes, another vehicle approached us and the commanding officer that talked to my husband a few day before stepped out. He was our salvation, because he immediately recognized me and my children, and gave orders to the soldiers to take us to where we were supposed to go. The Mercy of Allah knows no boundaries. He is the best Protector of life. So, the soldiers took us to the “sorting area” for those that were taken to the refugee camp – a large open space area surrounded by a fence. In some of my previous stories, I have mentioned about this place, where there were several warehouses, a few large tents, a medical unit and a market.
We stayed in this “sorting area” for 24 hours, after which we were directly taken to the camp. Inside the camp, they gave us a few things, just the bare minimum for survival: mattresses, a few dishes and cutlery, dried foods and some other necessary items. And thus a new chapter of my life began.
Many of you, my dear readers, are perhaps wondering why we have willingly surrendered ourselves to the soldiers. The answer is very simple: we had no other choice. It was meant to be and it would have ultimately happened all the same, sooner or later. All of us, who have travelled to Syria, ended up in the same place – the refugee camps. After I have gone through this trial, I have become much stronger, I have forgotten some of the horrors, some of the traumas I have suffered I have erased from my memories, but others still haunt me in my dreams to this day. All of the things that happened to me during my stay in the camp made me a lot more cautious, and experienced about life. And I have reached a few conclusions, the most important of which being that Allah never fails us, He never abandons us. Allah Almighty always protects those that truly believe in Him and always guards their lives, no matter what. And with this, my cherished readers, I end my story for now. May the Peace and Mercy of Allah Almighty, our Lord and Savior, always be with each and every one of, my dear Muslim Sisters.
Asira
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