Eqbal Ebrahim, Director of the
Syrian Women's Society
in Amman, welcomed us for an afternoon-long visit and tour of two of their
facilities.
The SWS was established in 2006 and has grown to include
offices in many Middle Eastern countries. Their primary purpose is the support,
education and advancement of Syrian women – some of whom have had
extraordinarily tragic experiences. They also have a rehabilitation center for
recuperating Free Syrian Army soldiers and citizens.
SWS is:
-
Supplying simple furnished apartments to widows
and injured women and their children who arriving from Syria;
-
Providing
educational services in first aid, computer use, culinary and sewing classes etc;
-
Offering
activities for children in the summer when school is not in session.
Eqbal brought us to one of the SWS homes. We met three women
and their children.
Da’ara was the original home of the first woman and her two
boys – ten and eight years old. Her
husband was killed, her mother was critically injured and her older son
seriously hurt when a missle fired from a Syrian Air Force jet hit their
home. The older son, Ezzat, was beside
his grandmother when her leg was amputated. She died shortly after arriving in
Jordan. Both boys witnessed their father’s body parts scattered all over the
living room. The injuries to Ezzat’s feet and legs are horrible. He was
described as a very sad boy. The younger
son is acting out with much aggression. Both are receiving appropriate
treatment and their family have been provided with a small apartment by the SWS
free of charge. Each family being assisted is assigned an area of
responsibility. She is responsible for the kitchen of the housing
center.
Here is a photo of Ezzat’s injuries:
The manager of the home described Ezzat as being very shy
when he first arrived in Jordan and that he’s come a long way. He was playing
visual hide and seek with me with a smile on his face. After playing for a while he allowed me to
kiss his big cheeks.
The second women we spoke with was from Daara. Her husband
and newborn baby girl were killed. She has four daughters and one son here who
are in school. She fled to Jordan as she feared for the safety of her remaining
daughters. She wanted to protect them from potentially being kidnapped and
raped.
The last woman in the room was there with her adult son,
Taher Masalma, who had crutches at his side.
She has another son in the FSA and three daughters who are in Amman with
her. Taher was injured and his father killed.
This is Taher (white jacket) with Mohammad Sukkar (our awesome guide) to his left, Nick to his right and the manager of the home:
Many were sitting at a mosque in Daara (where the revolution first began) in protest, in peaceful
revolution. The army surrounded them and
started throwing hand grenades then firing their weapons into the crowd. Taher
was shot in the chest while trying to help the wounded around him. After he was shot he was placed in an
ambulance with seven or eight other wounded.
At a checkpoint on the way to the hospital the army started firing into
the ambulance killing two doctors and the other passengers. Taher was the only survivor…but the soldiers
didn’t know that he was alive. Some were
speaking Farsi so he knew they were from Iran.
He stayed quiet in the ambulance bleeding as he had been shot in the arm, back and leg
at the checkpoint. The soldiers left
thinking all were dead. He was found
about two hours later and was taken to a hospital where the regime had removed
all medicines and medical equipment.
Because the physicians had no real tools they used a screw driver to
remove the bullet that was lodged in this chest. After arriving in Amman he had additional
surgery, including the placement of three pins in his right leg which is still
in a cast.
Here are pictures of the initial wounds:
And his leg still in a cast:
After visiting the home we went back to the SWS office where
we were introduced to a young gentleman likely in his mid-twenties. He was
arrested on the 3rd of October 2011 by the Air Force Intelligence
because he had been a peaceful protester. He was ‘discovered’ when he went
through a checkpoint as his name was on a list.
He sat for 20 days in jail where he was interrogated and
tortured the whole time. They applied electricity all over his body.
Here are
some of his wounds:
After 20 days he was moved to a main military prison in
Damascus.
He was in a basement room that was 1.5 x 2 meters (approximately
147.5 square feet) with 14 others. At one point they brought in an older
gentleman who had cuts all over his body. He died within 15 minutes. They yelled to the soldiers that the man had
died. Their response was ‘a dog has died’. They left his body there all day,
finally removing it in the evening.
The ceiling of the basement cell had three holes in it so
the soldiers could watch them. Sometimes the soldiers would throw trash down on
them through the holes or urinate down on them.
Two brothers, 15 and 16 years old, were raped by soldiers –
in front of each other with people watching. And old man shouted ‘what are you
doing to these children?’ The soldiers left the kids, got a stick and raped the
older man with it. He was then beaten and was never seen again.
He was there for 100 days, getting 2 meals a day, one in the
morning and one in the evening. In the
morning he was tortured with electricity and at night with batons.
He got to take a shower once a month. A group shower with
his prison mates – another form of torture.
The last thing they did to him was got a barrel filled with
water and put him in it. And then put electricity in the barrel. He passed out. The soldiers got a doctor to revive him.
When it was announced that the UN Observers were coming they
let him and everyone else go to ensure that there would be no evidence of
torture in their facility.
He got a paper from the court saying how many days he was in
prison, who arrested him and who signed the document. 'It is good evidence for
future war crime trials', he said.
He asked me to write about two children dear to him His 15
year old brother was traveling from Jordan to Syria on the 14th of
October (2012) to get papers he needed for school here. He was arrested at the
border and has not been seen since. His family asked police about him but they
said they had no information about such an arrest. The taxi driver told his parents that he was
arrested by Air Force personnel. He also
has a nephew that was arrested and whose whereabouts are unknown. His family just wants to know if these two
young boys are alive or dead.
This gentleman still has two brothers and a sister in Syria
so he has asked us not to use his name.
He is an architect and is volunteering at the SWS center conducting classes in AutoCAD.
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