She, Salma aged 15 years old and from Hama countryside, shouted loudly: “hurry up brothers to your holes in the soil.. death warplanes have took off as it was declared on the FM transceiver .. here it is coming toward us.. please Allah protect us as you wish”.
This is the case of majority of citizens in Kafar-zaita city in Hama countryside after procedures of escaping regime brutal bloody warplanes has overexerted; these warplanes which target everything humans, trees and stones as if threatening the citizens who have stayed in that district (Death For You All)
Salam carried her elder brother ” Morad” gently ,with the warmth of the missing mother, and very quickly with two hands getting up and down , she threw him into a hole earlier made by the father who cried for too long while digging as if he was preparing graves for his children.. but there is no other way for solitary death is much merciful than losing the whole family particularly after he had lost his wife in the same circumstances.
Salma checked the other holes with desperate eyes and prays in her heart “May Allah protect you.. please Allah save us from the harm of that warplane.. protect my father and brothers, I have nothing but them.. they are like water to me in life”.
Salam’s family was not the only one who come up with the idea of single holes fearing military fighters targeting civilians; most citizens have put their kids in similar holes with an idea crossing their mind( we may forget we laugh with us.. but we will not forget who cry with us”.
It is only moments till the sound of a warplane got loud after launching missiles in a nearby area where a strong explosion rocked the district with soil falling on who were in the holes, the citizens came out then thanking Gad for their and their children’s safety.
Salma walked slowly while carrying that little child “Morad” in her arms kissing him and saying: “Thanks Allah.. do not cry my little I will clean up your innocent face from dust so you become again bright just like our heart beats”.
With discontinuous laughs her old neighbor looked at her saying: “You will need a bar of soap and warm heart to clean your brothers.. May Allah have mercy on your mother and bless her .. and avenge her and us from those murderers”.
Salam’s father quietly and sadly said: ” In day light the kids know their holes where the mission is much easier to my grieve heart .. but at night in the dark while they are sleeping it is difficult to wake them up. Although my body sleeps, my mind dose not and the heart remains up with miseries on”.
That is how Syrians are living; from pain to another one, so many of them could not decamp refusing the idea holding on to the land. They drilled caves and caverns to be their new houses where sometimes it became mass graves in which innocent lives were claimed like what happened in “Alhabeat” (25 civilians were martyred due to barrel bombs being buried while alive. This made others dig single holes hoping it will be single death not mass one.
Salma returned to live in her house in way she has acclimated to saying in her heart: “we are living the strongest kind of challenges.. the challenge of either death or life.. but we will not give up with hope and love for our relatives and beloved”.
By Bayan Alahmad
Translated by Sabah Najem
#Syrian_Press_Center
