Syria, diary of a family: »Don’t come home! You are shooting again! “

If you follow someone for a year and interview them over and over again, there is hardly any other way than to think at some point that you have become close to that person in some way.

We exchange ideas, every two weeks, and I notice, for example, that some anecdotes are repeated almost every time I speak, so they seem important to my counterpart. Then I have something to link to the next call.

We send each other photos by WhatsApp, photos of Hamburg in exchange for photos of a tent in northern Syria. There comes a time when we have to laugh at the same thing at the same time.

A year has passed since February 2020. Since then I have been in contact with the Hajj Abdo family in Syria. At that time, Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad launched an offensive in Idlib province, bombing nearly a million Syrians from their homeland and displacing them in their own country. Hajj abdos also got into a car and fled when their village of Teqad, near Aleppo, was attacked.

The family ended up in the far north of Syria, in a refugee camp near Azaz. Since then, he has been reporting on his new life in journal entries on SPIEGEL. She lets us see their daily life as refugees. Twelve months in which we talk regularly.

The device that allows us to connect, Omer’s cell phone, is rarely in the hands of its owner. That is why it is not so easy to get to Omer. Most of the time one of the children has the cell phone, they learn with it, the school in times of crown; or play games on it, watch videos. Often times, the battery runs out. The internet often fails in the camp.

When Omer, Khadija and I speak, we always have a translator to help us, including a Syrian who fled to Turkey a few years ago. Often the translator calls the family first and then calls me on a separate call, depending on how easily Omer and Khadija are available that day.

There are always difficult moments. For example, when Omer told me that half of his house had been bombed and he didn’t dare tell his children. What else can you say?

“Syria deserves more than the world has done for us so far,” Omer said a year ago. At the time, the family was moving into the tent in the refugee camp, where they still sleep today. Neither of them could have imagined that a year from now they would still have to live in this store.

Omer knows that his diaries are read in a country that has often sent words of warning in the direction of Bashar al-Assad, but that the warmonger and his allies need not fear to this day.

In the current diary, Khadija and Omer Hajj Abdo speak alternately.

Thursday, February 11, 2021, Omer:

“There are pictures of our last dinner at home. Today, one year ago. We prayed together and then ate. The next morning we went. We don’t carry anything with us.

We are in a big car I just left our town of Teqad. In the days leading up to that, my wife and kids had to crawl into the rocks outside, little caves that were safer than houses. Because Syrian troops were about to take our town. They shot at our houses.

My feelings are confused when I look at the photos of our homeland. Life then seems far away. But I miss the neighbors, the street, how everything smelled, every day. A great sadness. “

Friday, February 12, 2021, Khadija:

“How we fought back then to get a car that would get us out of Idlib comes to mind like a movie. At that time, thousands of families fled, all just wanted to leave. After a year, the wound opens again, it hurts. That wound will stay forever. I will never forget the pain of losing my home in my life.

When there was a thunderstorm recently, our daughter Eilaf was very scared. She thought thunder was bombs and hid under her blankets. Even the little ones haven’t forgotten any of this.

The other day there was another bomb attack in Teqad. When I hear this news, he is afraid again: have there been victims? Have people we know died? “

Sunday February 14, 2021, Omer:

“We plan to visit our town. At least I wanted to stop by. With the children, a day or two before the anniversary. The little ones often ask when we will return. But then our old neighbors called. > Don’t come!<, haben sie gesagt. >It is too dangerous. They are shooting again. “You said that some people who have returned are now fleeing again. I’m glad I didn’t tell the kids about the plans in advance. Because we stayed in the refugee camp. “

Ten years of civil war in Syria. Even before that, the international community did not pay enough attention to the dire situation of the country’s population. The pandemic has completely obscured the urgency to finally create peace, to end the war. Since February 16, 2021, Russia, Turkey and Iran have been negotiating Syria’s future again, each with their own interests. The UN representative in Syria was “deeply disappointed” by the stalemate in the negotiations.

SPIEGEL correspondent Christoph Reuter wrote about the UN’s failure in his text “In the Eyes of the World” a year ago: “Everything has been said, written, so often that it makes you feel strange to repeat it.”

Tuesday February 16, 2021, Omer:

“We always wanted our children to be good at school. That they are doing something useful in their future. Maybe study. Have a better life. This is how he imagined it even before the war, when he wasn’t even a father.

We continue to have the same objectives. But we have to lower the expectations of our children and of ourselves as parents. Now we are displaced people, the so-called PDs. There is also Corona. Home schooling also affects us. Yes, my six children study at our store most of the time.

We have exactly one cell phone that they watch the tutorial videos on. And at night there is usually no light because the solar battery leaves its ghost. So the children can’t read anything. However, my daughters are among the best in their class, Fatima achieved 94 out of 100 points in the final test. Like in old school “.

Tuesday February 16, 2021, Khadija:

“The teachers here at the camp are different, not as good as at home. Due to the pandemic, classes were canceled for a long time. But I don’t blame the teachers. Their conditions are very different and most of them are displaced. You have other concerns. They also need to make sure their children eat enough every day.

Often we only have potatoes with a little spice and salt. I used to cook chicken once or twice a week. Since we have lived in the camp, and since food prices have been so high due to the pandemic, we only put meat on the table once a month.

Our middle daughter, Rama, actually needs a special diet because she has thyroid disease. That is also the reason why it grows so slowly. But that’s too expensive. “