Om Saleem who comes from Idlib countryside, lived in a Turkish camp by the Syrian borders for 2 years after her husband treatment was over as he was severely injured in the wake of an interstitial missile on their poor neighborhood. She has returned to her destroyed house for ” longing is way stronger than bitterness of displacement awaiting humanitarian aids”, she said.
It had not been a year for her displacement from her town till her second station of displacement in a camp by Syria-Turkey borders on the tenth of June, 2015. After her husband had had the required treatement, her family decided to cross the borders to Turkey with the help of a smuggler. She revealed to us: “After great efforts and long walking on feet, we arrived to al-Rehania town, where we sat under a tree. Then a Turkish cop came to us; we did not know what he spoke to us. He took us to the police station there and sent us to a camp there”.
“We entered the camp having nothing but our fragile exhausted bodies out of hunger,
fatigue and thirst. They brought us some food and drinks. Then we asked the Syrian families in the camp about the situation in it”, the 35-year old lady proceeded.
“The staff there prepared a tent for us provided it with everything we need regarding simple furniture cooking and cleaning tools. Besides, they gave us card to buy stuff from the store. We lived in tranquility in Turkey, but longing for our homeland was strong despite the long distance. My husband could not work for the repeated operations he had had, and because working there takes long hours. Here I decided to stay at our tent counting on humanitarian aids. We spent two years in the camp. Later, we made up our mind to go back to our town in Idlib rural. We entered the Syrian opposition-held areas”, she added.
With a smile of content, she revealed to us her feelings once coming homeland again, she said: ” When I was home again, I felt everything was strange even my town. Yet, my ruined walls of my house are much better than a UN tent, since I am here with my relatives.”
By Bayan al-Ahmad
translated by Sabah Najem
Syrian Press Center
