– part 1 –
Salaam aleikum va rahmatu Llahi.
Everything that I write here has to do with the women and children’s refugee camp in Syria. And even though I am no longer in the camp, every time I start to tell a story about my experiences there, I feel like I am returning to that place and reliving everything as intensely and dramatically as it was when it first happened. Each recollection, each and every memory has left a mark and a scar. Even know, as I start to write down this new story, I feel a slight chill taking over me. I believe that, no matter how much time passes, I will never be able to forget those years in the camp, I will never be able to erase the things that happened there from my memory.
But I digress…after my short epilogue, let us now return to my new story. I wish to tell you today about the way in which the so-called Census of the residents of the camp was done. The purpose of this endeavor was to collect information about the people brought there – to have photographs, the names and biometric data of everyone living inside the camp. Another aim was to identify potentially useful people, especially young boys that were of the right age to start military training, or boys that reached the age when they could be considered men and no longer children. Teenage boys of 14 or 15 were considered a threat, as I have already told you in one of my previous articles.
During my years inside the camp, two of three such censuses took place. One of them is still deeply engrained in my memory and I wish to tell you about it as well. So here it goes. Two days before the census, rumors started to spread inside the camp that it was about to happen. At first, no one believed the rumors, we all believed it was just another made up story. But when the process started in the Arab camp that was across the street from the women’s and children’s camp, all our doubts vanished. The soldiers began to prepare for the census and we started to do the same thing on our own side. Firstly, we had to find ways to hide all our communication means somewhere inside the camp. Some of us had money and jewels that also had to be hidden away from the soldiers. We proceeded to put all our valuables in jars that we tried to bury as deep as possible inside the perimeters of our tents. All throughout the camp, there was an intense activity taking place, as all the women started to hide their belongings. But the biggest problem was not the necessity to hide our material things. We needed to protect something far more important, something that was way harder to go unnoticed by the soldiers – we needed to hide our boys, especially the ones who could be taken away by the soldiers, and they could not fit into jars or be buried away until the danger passed. All the women to had young boys were extremely worried, regardless of the age, as it was impossible to know which one of them might catch the eye of a soldier and be considered a potential threats. We could not hide our boys inside our tents because, whenever they entered a tent, the soldiers would start to search it frantically for “forbidden items” and turned everything upside down.
And so, as the day of the census got closer and closer, the tension and the anxiety grew stronger. We were even afraid to fall asleep during the night. One day, our biggest fears became reality. We were awaken suddenly at 5 am, when a large number of trucks and soldiers entered the camp. I did not know at the time what was about to happen, but I was about to find out. And I will tell you my story. Yet another sad experience from my time inside the refugee camp.
Even now, as I recall it and put it down on paper, the panic sets in and the feeling of dread takes over me completely. It is as if I have returned back in time, to that day, to that early morning. I am overtaken by fear, a cold wave of shivers goes down my spine, a long forgotten awful sensation returning to the surface. And I feel as if a hard rock is pressing against my chest, making it hard for me to breathe, as I remembers all those moments from so long ago. I try to write and I cannot stop my tears. They run down my cheeks in rivers, uncontrollably. And this census took place for several days, each as scary as the others for me. I am sorry, my dear readers… you will have to read what happened in my next article… I need a little bit of time to calm myself and be able to continue writing my story…
Asira
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