At the Nizar Qabbani Elementary School in Hassake, named after the Syrian author of legendary love poems, there are no students left. For days now, desperate, perplexed people are cowering in every room, scrupulously trying to keep their clothes clean. Because what they carry is all they could take with them from their villages and the city of Ras al-Ain, when without warning on Wednesday afternoon last week, first the mortar shot, then the attacks of the Turkish jets began. Some keep crying, missing relatives, neighbors, friends, are still shocked by the experience of fleeing their homes, leaving their homes.
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Issue 43/2019
The capitulation of the West
How the victory of despots in Syria destroys a people, strengthens IS and threatens EuropeDigital Edition | Printed Edition | Apps | SUBSCRIPTION
Only one man stands completely relaxed in the middle of a bare classroom (benches and chairs piled up in the courtyard) and nods friendly smiling as we enter. He could not save anything but his family, but he does not seem to mind much. He comes from Homs, the cradle of the Syrian revolution. And has been on the run since the murderous summer of 2012, when the 4th Division of the Syrian Army bombed the city's oppositional quarters so indiscriminately that it did not matter if someone with weapons was defending his house or just selling vegetables like Mohammed Nabhan . "I've never been a political person," says the 59-year-old serenely, but then uses the fingers of both hands to enumerate where he's fled with his family over the past seven years.
From Chalidiya, its now desolate, almost deserted quarter in the center of Homs, it went from village to village heading north, always a few weeks, months, until any frontline approached. Eventually they landed in Jarablus, a small town on the Turkish border. They were safe from the regime's troops there, but in 2014 fighters of the Islamic State terrorist militia rolled on pick-ups and declared the city part of their "caliphate". Nabhan was gone, moving east from place to place until they landed in Ras al-Ain less than two years ago. Where, one and a half weeks ago, the attack of the Turkish army began with monstrous force.
"We never have a problem with an area," he says ironically, "but obviously every area has a problem with us." That they had to run for their lives again and have nothing left except their clothes and some documents, well, "we already know that".
Christoph Reuter / DER SPIEGEL
Mohammed al-Nahban: "We never have problems with an area, but obviously every area has a problem with us"
Mohammed al-Nabhan, who prefers to sit and reluctantly sit because his diabetes has given him a poorly healing wound on his left foot, looks like a full-bearded incarnation of this people. Because time and again you meet Syrians who have been going through hell for years and have not gone insane. No fanatical jihadists, no jubilant disciples of dictator Assad, but those with incredible resilience thrust through life by the deadly attacks of various armies.
"At first we mostly lived in a warehouse, a stable", he summarizes the experiences of a professional refugee, "then moved into a vacant house." Most of the time many others had fled the village where we sought refuge. " As a greengrocer, he at least found work time and again, from time to time receiving money from relatives abroad. Over the years, he has married four of his five daughters in various locations on their odyssey, "heek," as life goes by.
Only one is still with the nine-year-old grandson with him and his wife. Her husband was taken away by the death squads of the regime that summer of 2012, never appeared again. So the four stay together, from place to place.
Where they are going, he does not know. "Hopefully back to Ras al-Ain!" Once in Homs, Nabhan and his brothers owned four apartment blocks, were wealthy. But the tenants also fled, fleeing other refugees, some things were destroyed, it does not matter: "Our city is no more, our relatives have died or fled all over the world", to Lebanon, to Sweden, Jordan. All neighbors, friends are gone. He was not wanted, could visit the ruins of his neighborhood: "But that's dead there, you understand?" It was a pity, because "Homs was always the paradise on earth for me!" Why? "It was such a quiet city."
The grief of the grandparents
For 70 years, it has been quiet here, says Georges Haido , a farmer from the community of Assyrian Christians. The rocky fields around his village Pirrik four kilometers south of the Turkish border look as if nothing much has changed since biblical times. But then a single Turkish grenade, fired on Friday of last week, was enough to hit 200 meters next to Haido's house exactly where two shepherds stood with their herd. A shrapnel shot into the head of 28-year-old Salah Said, he was killed instantly. His friend Dani Hana survived seriously injured. 57 of her sheep died.
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Georges Haido (l.): "We will not flee from the Turks, not again"
Salah was a quiet person, his uncle said at the memorial service, where dozens condole the dumbfounded father, sipping coffee from tiny cups and constantly smoking: "He liked being outside with the sheep, but a week ago we had A woman found for him was so happy and then we did not want to believe it, a grenade from Turkey killing a shepherd, if they had targeted him, they would never have met him. "
The two Elders from Jisr sat in front of their house as the grenade struck, the force still felt on their terrace. "But we will not flee from the Turks! Not again," says Haido, 61, and tells how his family came to Pirrik in the early fifties: fled from Turkey, where his grandparents barely missed the massacres of the Young Turks on the Assyrian Christians had escaped during the First World War. The suffering has not been forgotten, even over generations. Just as the new suffering of these days will not be forgotten.
"It happened to us then like the Armenians", he says, "we were just not that many". More than 150,000 Assyrians were killed, "Kurds also joined in. But we will never forget the Turks, who gave the orders, what they did to us, the death marches, the slaughter of women, children, just like our parents did we'll pass it on to our children. "
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It is a peaceful afternoon in the middle of the war, only the twittering of birds can be heard, in the distance crowing a cock, but Haido and his nephew Suleyman the same age are the last people in the village. The families all fled, farther away from the border. Some would come from time to time to herd the sheep of the village, to harvest vegetables, to see the ducks. But before sunset everybody went back to Derek. In addition, this war was so confused with Syrians who shoot on behalf of the Turks on other Syrians that in the dark in case of doubt, the fire is opened to any stranger. "The Turkish army can come anytime," he admits, "they do not have a long way to go, but we will stay, and if they kill us, we will not run away, not again."
"We shouted loudly that they should not abandon us!"
"We thought the world would help us this time," Alin Ahmed begins her story: "The Europeans would defend us Kurds if this Trump orders the withdrawal of his soldiers, but nobody helps us, once again, what does Turkey want from us? Did we attack them? We just want to live! "
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Alin Ahmed (dark dress, M.): "Nobody helps us, once again"
The farmer's wife lived in a village near Ras al-Ain, a few hundred meters from the Turkish border. They had been afraid for days. But then, as a group of mothers, they run to the US soldiers near them, describing the last day before the war, their voice trembling with rage, "The Americans had a small camp in Tell Arkam seven kilometers away Women are there with the portraits of our martyrs who died in the fight against Daesh (the "Islamic State") and we shouted that they should not abandon us, because our husbands, sons, brothers are also for them We stood in front of the gate until they came out, they had to call their commander first, but then they sent a WhatsApp message, which the translator read to us: The Americans would not leave, they would stay here for ours The next afternoon they were gone and in the afternoon the Turkish bombers arrived. "
At least two other women from Serekaniye confirm the scene. And there was no escape until the moment of the attack, though Erdogan had left no doubt about his plans.
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She was not well on foot, continues Alin Ahmed with tears in his eyes, walked for hours through the steppe, fearing to be hit. Mothers could hardly have carried their children, a pregnant woman remained in the village, nobody knew what became of her. Through Ras al-Ain death-defying Kurdish fighters drove through the city in a slalom with a requisitioned coach to collect all who could not find a car, could not walk, old people, sick people. But no one came to her village.
And now? She did not want the Turks. She also did not want to return Assad, not to be treated as a second-class person again. "Ardna", our country, "we want our country back, finally be able to live in peace, Ardna, Ardna", it repeats it like a mantra that the self-evident they are entitled to.
