"The sound of a fighter jet over your head is the sound of helplessness. We've been hearing the bombs for two weeks. Always closer to the village where we have lived for two years. And the horrible noise of the fighter plane arrived. I've heard this roar before. It cuts your breath, puts you before your eyes in the space of a second your death, that of your children, your loved ones. It makes you feel the fading future. And then it hits somewhere. And you realize that you are still alive. A second of joy. Before realizing that others have died in your place.
On that day, it was February 17, they bombed the small hospital in Daret Azzeh. It was five days after my daughter’s birthday. She just turned 4 and we didn't celebrate them. Someone had to pick us up by car to flee the city with the others, but he never came. We got on my motorbike with my wife, my daughter and my 1.5 year old son. And we left everything behind. We all drove an hour and a half like that, tight. People left by any means.
"In Atmeh, even the animals have no roof. We put them outside to rent at a high price stalls in stables to families who have been displaced like us. "
It was our third escape. We had evacuated Aleppo in 2016, when the regime took the city, my city, where I became an activist. Then we settled in Atarib where, a year later, dozens of people were massacred in a market in a bombing of the regime and, now we are on the road again, towards the Turkish border. I contacted a classmate from the university who lives in Atmeh. It is less than 3 kilometers from Turkish territory. We were only supposed to stay there for a day, but there is nowhere to go. He provided us with a room where the four of us live. He has young children. He lends us clothes. If I go to the roof of the house, all I see is a sea of tents. I would rather die under the bombs than live in such conditions.
In Atmeh, even the animals no longer have a roof. We put them outside to rent at a high price stalls in stables to families who have been displaced like us. There is physically no room for everyone. Hundreds of thousands of people have settled along the Turkish border and say it will be safer for them. If the regime continues to advance, it will have to walk towards this wall that the Turks have built because they no longer want refugees. Towards their soldiers who shoot on sight. Maybe we will leave before that. All our relatives, refugees, scattered around the world are begging us to do so. A thousand dollars, two thousand dollars per person in the pockets of the smuggler to try to reach Turkey, at the risk of being shot. But death is better than falling into the hands of the regime. It would be torture to nothingness, until there was nothing left of me, my wife, my children. I left half of my soul in Aleppo, the city where I fought for my freedom. I will leave the other half on the Turkish side. But I will have my body and mine. "
