Om Ali just like many citizens of Aleppo, has been diaplaced from al-Sukary area to Idlib within evacuation deal, hoping someday she will return to her house by which she buried the carnage of her husband.
The nights of Aleppo city were way darker than the other cities, as missiles fell on its residential districts heavily as rain. Fear and panic all what one could feel in that situation, where no one knew if he would be next on casualties list. This fear drove thousands citizens of Aleppo to yield in the wake of suffocating siege and military escalation, to get on the green buses heading the neighboring governorate Idlib.
Om Ali who is in her forties, revealed in her speech to us her first and last attempt after displacement to go back to Aleppo; she said: “I had to return there to bring my daughter who stayed with her family-in-law after her husband got arrested. I wanted to be with her for she was about to deliver her first child”.
“I woke up at five in the morning getting dressed to head the bus station to get on board to Aleppo from which I was displaced by force. I did not think it would be that difficult!.. I was afraid. Whenever we came by a regime checkpoint, the lady sitting next to me said: ‘stay calm… Oh Allah what is this dilemma? How will I go back to Idlib?’ while she was holding tight my hand”, she added.
“I managed to reach there. Before I came back to Idlib with my daughter, I went to my house. I stood in front of the door for couple minutes before having the guts to knock on the door with shaking hand. A Russian soldier opened the door, I rushed inside to see four soldiers in military uniform sitting on the floor. They started to laugh at me. I did not find any piece of furniture; Shabeha stole everything, and the Russian soldiers occupied my house “, she proceeded with tears in eyes.
The widow wiped her tears, and then added: “I rushed and got on a car heading Idlib, with fear and anger storming in my heart; I did not visit my husband grave fearing arrest after hearing such stories.. I was angery for losing hope of getting back again. I vowed I will never go to Aleppo ever again”.
By Bayan al-Ahmad
translated by Sabah Najem
Syrian Press Center
