11.18.12 continued Individual stories – Family visits *WARNING EXPLICIT*

We visited three families Sunday bringing with us toothbrushes, toothpaste, Ausome fruit snacks and M&Ms for children.

The first family we visited was a woman, her three children and her mother. The woman wanted to tell us how her husband was murdered but her mother didn’t want her to talk with us. The grandmother was very, very afraid because they ‘escaped’ from Za’atari  refugee camp (north near the border) and feared being returned to the camp. She was also angry because in the five or so months she had been in Amman roughly 15 people had visited but no one has yet provided assistance to her family.

Bear in mind that these people have lost every material possession they owned as well as their ability to earn a living. They have almost nothing – just the clothes they came with and maybe a few items donated from kind people.  Many can’t pay the rent in the low income apartments so are evicted often. It’s not their fault. They left a war zone and have nothing…

The area where many of the refugees are living in Amman is called Mukhaym Hussein, or Camp Hussein. It was originally a Palestinian refugee camp established in 1948 when the people of present day Israel were forced from their homes. Over time permanent structures have been built up but the community has had consistent economic struggles.

We traveled down an alley to visit the second family.

A man was seated on a cushion with his right leg outstretched. 

He welcomed us and immediately started telling us about his family. As he talked extended family members joined us. Abdul has eight sons and four daughters.   One son was kidnapped by the governor of his district in Homs. The regime accused this son of rape – which he didn’t do. The immediately imprisoned him.  He was tortured horribly. When he asked for water he was given petrol.  He was beaten and tortured all over his body, including his genitals, with an electric shock.  They finally got this son released from prison due to the lack of evidence. After he was released he was treated medically for five months after which he was well enough to go home to finish recuperating.  The very first time he ventured out of his house he was shot in the head by a sniper.  Here’s his picture:

His seven year old son was shot by a rooftop sniper while trying to cross the street.  He thankfully survived.  His third son was kidnapped and his whereabouts are unknown.  The fourth is in prison.

After telling us about his children he shared that he, too, was shot in the leg when trying to cross a street. He pulled his pant leg up to show us a big circular scar on the outside of his right leg.  It likely didn’t heal properly and it causes him much pain.  But he’s alive.

Abdul spoke of 54 of his neighbors who were hiding in the Christian section of the city. They were sheltering in a school that was supposed to be protected by the Red Crescent (the equivalent of the Red Cross).  Assad’s soldiers hunted them down and executed them with knives and then the school was bombed.  A few survived. The Free Syrian Army got a bus and sent the survivors to Damascus.

Abdul’s cousin spoke up next saying all they did was peacefully protest and the army came in. They were not at all violent initially. He wants the world to know that.  His son was shot in the chest above his heart. Thankfully he survived.   He said they left Syria because they were so afraid particularly for their women and children because they saw a regime tank entering the city with six to eight naked women walking in front as human shields.  Some of Assad’s forces use this technique to protect the gunners from being shot as the FSA fighters don’t want to accidentally shoot their daughters, sisters or mothers.

While Abdul’s cousin was speaking a young boy came in the room.  ‘He is seven’, Abdul said.  ‘A soldier was  dragging him across the street by his feet. His horrified father ran to get his son and was beheaded in front on the boy.’ 

The last home we visited was of four sisters – all of whom are now widowed.  The first that spoke had a son fighting in the Free Syrian Army. 

The second sister said the regime broke into her town and asked for her brother.  The brother then went missing so the sister went to the police station to report that one of Assad’s soldiers had kidnapper him. She was tortured and they forced her to record that an armed gang killed him when in fact it was Assad’s soldiers.  She returned home and a soldier had captured her husband. She had her daughter in tow and ran to try to save her husband. He was machined-gunned down in front of her and her daughter was shot in the side.  As the sister ran to her husband a soldier attacked her, hitting her in the chest and her leg with the butt of his machine gun. Her leg was smashed and she suffers much pain. Thankfully her daughter survived.   

Their younger brother was beheaded.

I was very taken with this second woman who had suffered so much. She wanted her story told and allowed to take a picture of her and one of her sons:

Other family members began to add to the conversation. One told of how Bashar al-Assad announced that Homs – the surrounding suburbs of which are Alowites and followers of Assad – were ALL against the regime.  He wanted to use Homs as an example in the hopes of squelching uprisings in other cities.  He continued on and said his son had been in the Syrian Army. He said the revolution started when he was away on vacation.  When he returned and saw what was happening and that approximately 40 Iranians were now in his regiment he defected and joined the Free Syrian Army.  His youngest child – a beautiful little girl – was born in Homs. They didn’t dare put many details on her birth certificate in the hopes of protecting her.

I was shown a Syrian ID.  They have codes (that some people didn’t even realize were there) that identifies their religious affiliation. This is how the Syrian Army is identifying anyone who isn’t Alowite, Shi’ite, or Christian. By way of reminder, Sunni are the majority in Syria and the other sects band together for security. Assad, an Alowite, had been afraid that the majority would remove him from power- hence the heinous treatment of his own people.

The man with the beautiful baby told of a funeral of eight in Clock Square of Karm Al-Zaiten. Many thousands of people came to participate in the funeral. All of a sudden the electricity was cut, the lights went out and machine gun fire erupted.  All were killed in about an hour and Assad’s regime took bulldozers to bury the bodies in a mass grave in Belmira by ‘Military Zone 118’.  They then hosed down the streets, leaving no trace of the atrocity.

In the town of Alhamadia one of the men – a ‘supplier’ in the Free Syrian Army - witnessed tanks moving into town. 23 women were used as human shields as Assad’s soldiers murdered about 1,300 in three days. To this day there are still bodies in homes. Assad’s forces control the town to this day.  You’ll see bones on the streets.  He not only was a witness to this horror but he helped bury at least 200 of the dead.

Others spoke up and said that the stories they related weren’t the worst stories:

·        -   One witnessed a pregnant woman being sliced open, her fetus was removed and killed and the mother   holding it until she died as well;

·          - Another found many children in a school room whose necks and legs had been slashed. Some of their faces had been cut;

·          - One saw a three year old being disemboweled, it’s mother cradling it until it died;

·         - A man witnessed another man being tied to two tanks – an arm and a leg tied to each. Then the tanks drove in opposite directions;

·         - Another spoke of seeing many people were hiding in the basement of a hospital. Hundreds of people. The Syrian Army set the hospital on fire.

11.19.12 Monday morning - Visit injured boys and men at rehab center outside a specialty hospital in Amman. *WARNING EXPLICIT*

We visited two rooms at the rehab center.

The first had three sweet boys – all of whom had been shot, two in the back. One was fully paralyzed  and the second was paralyzed from the waist down. A third boy was shot twice, once in the chest and once in the stomach. He had drainage tubes coming out of his abdomen to drain fluid collecting in one lung and his stomach. 

The second room had seven beds with seven young men. My guess is that most were in there twenties .  Of the seven men, six had been shot in the back by snipers aiming for their spinal column. Their intent is to maim and cause suffering, not to kill.  The seventh man was shot in his right forearm and all the bones were shattered.

The gentleman who had been bringing us through the rehab center and explaining the injuries was not too long before been a patient in that very center.  His story is horrifying. His spirit is unbroken.

Abu Tamer was the only survivor of a massacre at Karoom Zaitoon, a district of Homs.  The Syrian army broke into their area, asked everyone for their IDs, brought them into one large room, made them lie on floor, covered them with blankets and started shooting.   After the army was done shooting they attempted to set the blankets on fire but they wouldn’t catch. They eventually left. Abu Tamer amazingly survived. He had been shot in the back with an explosive round so he had many wounds. He managed to crawl out from the pile of dead bodies.  He was treated in a field hospital  and the Red Cross video documented his story (which they then posted on YouTube) for future war crime trials.  In April he escaped Syria to a hospital in Jordan for further treatment. 

Abu Tamer went on to explain what happened in Karoom Zaitoon after the men were shot. He said they arrested the women and children and killed them by slicing their throats.  He explained that the goal of the Syrian regime is to instill intense fear so that other cities would take notice and not protest. That was in vain as the protests spread like wildfire because of that very brutality.

He added that he’s lucky he wasn’t killed as they do their best not to leave witnesses.

Abu Tamer said that when he fled he had no money. Usually if you don’t have money you don’t receive medical treatment.  But the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS) made certain he had the treatment he needed. He said he is healed and is now giving back by taking care of the injured – and particularly the paralyzed - at the rehab center that treated him. 

Another man named Bassam also lived in the same town. He described it as a mixed neighborhood – about half Alawite (as is Bashar al-Assad) and half mixed including Sunni, Christian, etc.  Once Assad started attacking, the military divided the town in two, armed the Alawites and set up a checkpoint between the two stationed with tanks and soldiers.  When the Free Syrian Army (FSA) would attack the checkpoint, the army would attack family members of the FSA fighters.

Usually when the Syrian army came close to their town they were warned by the FSA and could leave or hide. At one point a large regiment showed up without warning. Bassam called one of his cousins to warn him. An unknown voice answered and simply stated ‘your cousin is dead. I killed him.’

Another time Bassam’s father paid the Syrian army soldier at the checkpoint so he could go to check on two older men, both of whom had serious diseases (one had Parkinson’s and I’m not sure what the other had).  His father entered their homes and both had been shot dead - and left in their homes to rot.

Abu Tamer and Bassam said there are mass graves in Karoom Zaitoon. In some places all you need do is move the dirt with your shoe and you are sure to see bones. Human bones.

Both told another story of a maternity hospital. There were preemies in incubators. The regime forces shut off the electricity to the hospital. All the babies died.

Additionally, Bassam explained that he was injured when his house was the target of RPGs. He was injured but is fully healed and, like Abu Tamer, is helping in the rehab center.

I asked them how they emotionally bare the trauma of all they experienced and lost.  Abu Tamer, in particular,  smiled a lot hence the question. He replied ‘the trauma are facts we are dealing with. I feel hope when I think of a future with an Assad-free Syria.’ That is how he copes. 

11.17.12 Sunset over Paris, France enroute to Amman via Royal Jordanian Airlines

Arrival and first day meeting with refugee families

We are arrived safely in Amman early this morning about 1am.  Our luggage, however, decided to go on adventure of their own. It appears that the four errant bags have been corralled and are in the air on their way to Amman. We should have them by tomorrow mid morning. This is a minor inconvenience in the scheme of things but I admit I very much can't wait for them to show up as fresh clean clothes sound so very appetizing right now!

We are incredibly blessed to have two wonderful guardians helping us with logistics and more. Mohammad and Abdulaziz are two young men from Damascus who have been in Amman for about four months. They have been volunteering with the Syrian American Medical Society, training in social work and related programs to assist their country people.

Abdulaziz and Mohammad and another volunteer spent about five hours bringing us to visit Syrian refugee families in what is considered the ghetto here in Amman. We visited four families who came to Amman four or less months ago - all having escaped either because they were injured by the Assad regime or were trying to save family members from being killed. They talk especially of trying to save women and children. The pictures and videos they shared and the stories they told seem incomprehensible. What is taking place is evil beyond evil.

Most of the families wanted us to take notes and pictures to share with the world. They feel so abandoned by the international community. They do not understand why we are sitting by and allowing Bashar al-Assad to kill them as he pleases.   We had no answers for them.

The transition from seeing occasional pictures in the media and hearing the occasional story on NPR or another news organ and meeting the people who have experienced these unthinkable things is quite overwhelming. But not as overwhelming as their experiences.

They've asked us to share their stories so we will.

Some of these videos or pictures you may not wish to see so skip over them. The purpose is not to make you feel uncomfortable. The purpose is the telling - because Syrian refugees need or want their stories told.

I'll try to post some as soon as I transfer them from my phone to my laptop.

In the meantime, though it may sound cliche, we have everything when we have our family close to us.  That is everything.  Blessings to you and yours.

Air Canada messed with our schedule!   We were supposed to fly from Hartford, CT to Toronto, from there to Vienna and finally to Amman, Jordan. But our first flight out was delayed by an hour due to a 'broken airplane' ;-)   so we missed our Vienna connection in Toronto. Long story short after much waiting we were booked to Paris, France and will fly out in about six hours to Amman, Jordan arriving about 11:45pm their time this evening. 32 hours of traveling here we come!  It's all good, though. Fortunately we have no absolute schedule in Amman as of yet so we aren't holding up the show.

Our layover in Paris is a total of six hours. But it's a rainy, cold day so we won't venture out of the airport.

Will write more later. Hope you are doing well!

The countdown has begun.  4 pieces of luggage full of medical supplies, toothbrushes & toothpaste, Ausome healthy fruit snacks and stuffed animals for children are packed. We will post once we are settled and have internet access in Jordan. Happy Thanksgiving everyone! And thanks for the amazing support.