The story of Zainab, held hostage for ransom in Serekaniye. Originally published in Arabic here.
Hamza Hamaki
Jumah
Sheikho did not
expect that the decision to return with his wife to his city,
Serekaniye, would end in tragedy.
On
October 9, last year, Turkey, with factions affiliated with the
Syrian opposition, launched a major military invasion from
Serekaniye to
Gire Spi. Fierce
battles erupted on a 120-km front on the border between the two
cities, and ended in Turkey talking control
over this entire
area after the withdrawal of the Syrian Democratic Forces, according
to an agreement between Washington and Ankara.
It
was on the third day after the shelling and fighting began, when Juma
Sheikho decided to take his family out of the city to the south and
west, to the
villages of the town of Til
Temer
on the Heseke road,
in an attempt to save their lives as
the Turkish bombardment reached its height and
armed jihadist gangs invaded Serekaniye in a “street war”.
That
afternoon, he set off
with a motorbike that was his only way to get his family out. Like
most of their neighbours, they feared for
their lives and felt like they had no choice.
During
the first days of
Turkish bombing focused on the city and its countryside, about
150,000 people fled the city. They crossed
the countryside of Til
Temer and reached
Heseke, in scenes that embodied one of the
worst tragedies
in Syria during eight years of the war. Hundreds
of children and women gathered outside,
taking refuge
from the cold and rain in
schools or unfinished
buildings.
During this time most
international relief organizations withdrew
their staff from Rojava, and left across
the borders to
the Kurdistan region of Iraq. This
led to great pressure on the local organizations, which found
themselves shouldering all
responsibility to provide assistance to the displaced, despite
limited capabilities.
The thirteenth day of October marked
a tragic turn for Zainab and her family. Two
days after
reaching safety, she and her husband made a decision to return home
to find out what had happened
to their house.
“We had
taken the decision to check on our house and fetch
some necessities,”
Sheikho said, “but we never thought
Zainab would be kidnapped by an
armed faction in the city center. By luck
I managed to escape with some other families.”
Zainab
spent two weeks in
detention, during which time Juma could not
sleep. This fear has been tasted by dozens
of families displaced from Serekaniye
according to local human rights reports, despite being
unable to gather accurate statistics on
these violations.
After
Sheikho reached his family, he tried everything
to find out what had happened to his wife,
but to no avail, until he received messages from the gangs
who had detained her.
Grey
hair falling across his face, he says:
“They sent me pictures of Zainab, and demanded a ransom of one
million Syrian pounds in exchange for her release.” He
tried to secure the amount with the aim of
sending it through brokers to the agents who had detained his
wife.
During the period of Zainab’s detention, the man
comforted his three children and his other wife. He said: “The one
million pounds that I sent to the armed factions, I worked hard to
collect it, but the return of my wife to her family cannot
be measured in money.”
However,
Zainab’s return to
her family would not end her suffering, as her husband had hoped. The
effects of the period of forced detention on her are far from being
forgotten. The
horror of the scenes of killing and torture that she lived for
two weeks was a nightmare from which she
still cannot wake.
Char magazine
was unable to take her testimony and know what happened to
her during the detention period, as
Zainab was unable to look at the camera while we were taking
pictures. “She can
no longer speak to men,” her husband
said.
Zainab
today lives with her family in the school of Umm Hajariya, located to
the west of the neighborhood of Al-Nashwa in Heseke.
They live in one room, with two other
families, in
difficult conditions.
Explaining
the situation of his family, Sheikho added, “How can three
families live in one room These children are out of school.
Everything went overnight.”
For Juma, the pain and hardship he experienced and went through with his family, he says would be worth it if only he could see his wife recover from her psychological crisis, and overcome the horrors she experienced.
