A Generation Touched by War:
The Story of A Survivor of the Syrian Civil War
Dubai | Sunday, 28 April 2019
Picture credit: Ayah Alatasi
With her frequently flashing smiles and vivacious personality, when talking to Ayah Alatasi, one wouldn’t associate her with war in any plausible way. She is charming, friendly, and her demeanour is light-hearted and radiates contentedness. But behind the gentle laughs and beaming face, lies Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), the loss of her home and her loved ones. Ayah - 18 years old now - at a very young age saw the ugly brutalities and wastefulness of war. Today, she says the war helped her become who she is – strong and relentlessly brave: a survivor. She sits with fortitude and resilience, as she recounts the years when the war was at its worst.
​
Ayah is from Homs, a city in western Syria. It lies 162 km north of the capital Damascus. Homs was the first city in which the war started in March, 2011. As kids, Ayah and her younger sister Talah, would find people standing in their balconies banging pots and pans in defiance and holding hands in rebellion funny to watch. Her family – consisting of her single mother and her younger sister - was forced to leave their home and live with her grandparents whose house is located in a neighbourhood with comparatively less shootings and bombings.
​
Ayah, while safe with her grandparents, says she thought about her own house everyday: “Is there a house still? Is my room still there?”
Ayah’s bedroom, ransacked and looted
Picture credit: Ayah Alatasi
Ayah’s family only expected to stay for a couple of weeks but the weeks turned to months, the months into a year and then they were there for almost four years.
​
“The shootings would start in the morning; there was a sniper posted at a tower nearby who would randomly shoot everywhere, at anyone. Shooters would just walk through neighbourhoods and start shooting at buildings; we wouldn’t know when one was coming. We would just sit there hoping not to die.”
​
There were many nights when Ayah and her family had to hide in an inside room and under a table for safety. She recounts countless Ramadan days having iftar under the safety of the table.
​
“But we never actually felt that this was not okay because our Mom made us feel like it was a game. ‘Haha, they’re shooting fireworks, it’s fine, you’re going to be fine,’ she would say. So we were okay with it.
​
“We would play loud music on our iPods so we couldn’t hear what was going on. We would just hide and draw and colour, we would choreograph random dances and make up things. We choreographed many, many dances,” she laughs.
​
“Over time,” says Ayah “we got used to the firings”.
A wall in Ayah’s house riddled with bullets.
Picture credit: Ayah Alatasi
Soldiers would go door to door to see if there were any boys above the age of 18 to recruit. Sometimes, families would hide boys in their houses and so the soldiers would do thorough searches.
​
There were instances in which the soldiers would point at any woman of the household and say, “I want her.”
​
“You can’t say no to them,” says Ayah. “They would take her, rape her, and they would just throw her.”
​
On Thursdays, all the teenagers would go out. They would meet up with their friends and just walk around. The places where the most number of youngsters would gather were prime targets for bombings.
​
“Every Thursday was a gamble. Should I go out? Will I die? Or should I just stay home and not risk it? But you know as a teenager, you don’t really understand the concept of ‘you might die’. All you care about is, ‘I just want to hang out with my friends.’”
​
Picture credit: Ayah Alatasi
Picture credit: Ayah Alatasi
Ayah, with a small sorrowful smile, recounts the tragedy of her close friend Ahmad Alabrash. Ahmad had gone to the supermarket to get some utilities. The supermarket is located in an area where bombings frequently occur. When Ayah heard that there had just been a bombing there she immediately called him to check if he was okay. Ayah was really worried because no one answered.
​
At night, a friend of Ahmad’s called Ayah and told her that Ahmad had been shot at. He was close to where the bomb dropped and the shrapnel had hit him in multiple places – his chest, his back, his arms and his face. He was in the hospital for ten days and Ayah says that she couldn’t go to see him as it wasn’t acceptable for her to visit a male friend.
​
"When someone dies, they make an announcement in the mosque every Friday which says, ‘This person who is the son of so-and-so, passed away. Read the Fatihah for him’.
​
“I heard his name called. And I said, ‘No!’”
​
Just the day before, Ahmad’s friend had called Ayah and had told her that he was getting better and that they might release him soon.
​
Ahmad was 16 years old when he passed away. “He was smart and an amazing person. He loved helping people and he was so kind to everyone. We just pray for him. He’s in a better place now. It’s better for him to be there than here in this horrible world.”
​
Ayah says that it was really hard to get over the fact that he was gone: “We were really close and we had a fight the day before – it took me quite a long time to get over it.”
​
Ayah’s best friend’s uncle complained to the authorities that his brother was helping people of the revolution by giving them money, weapons and food. But he wasn’t in fact doing anything, and this was done just to get him in trouble. He was arrested but had contacts in high positions and so was released.
​
“A lot of people were doing that to their brothers, sisters, fathers, sons and daughters. Sometimes they would do would it for money, sometimes just like that,” she says.
​
It was illegal to treat war victims in hospitals. There were groups of men who would aid war victims and look after them. They would improvise for equipment because nothing would be available. They would also hide members of the retaliation and keep them safe.
​
“Everyone was showing their true faces in the war. We went to war against ourselves and we lost. Everyone lost.”
​
Ayah, having finished high school, moved to Dubai to pursue a degree in psychology and is a dedicated student. Ayah currently lives with her father and her step-mother who are based in Dubai and is strongly devoted to never taking anything for granted and living a good life. Talking about the war is a form of therapy for her and she is eager to spread her knowledge and experience so that others may also learn.
​
Ayah says that it’s horrible to reflect on it after it’s all done. She believes that whether one is with the government of Syria or against, there is nothing to be gained.
​
“We lost family, friends, houses, money, businesses - everything. What did they get out of it? They destroyed the country, they destroyed people’s lives, and they destroyed each other. People lost everything and all for what?”
Picture credit: Ayah Alatasi
Picture credit: Ayah Alatasi