Lives on hold
By Iman Morooka Tartous, Syrian Arab Republic, 2 April 2013 – “My 4-year-old sister couldn’t talk for a while after she witnessed our neighbourhood under attack,” says Siham*.
Siham is 20 years old. She comes from Aleppo. She is telling me the story of her family’s exodus to the coastal city of Tartous. “We gave her water and tried to make her speak, but she just couldn’t,” she continues. “She was too much in a shock.”
There are about 200,000 persons in need of humanitarian assistance in Tartous governorate, but the actual number is expected to have increased recently. New arrivals continue to flow on a daily basis.
“Thank God my sister is fine now,” says Siham with a smile. The family currently lives in a room at a communal building in Tartous.
Some 37 families took refuge in this shelter escaping the violence in Aleppo.
Ali (12) tells me that what he wants the most is “to go home, and just live with my family again like before”.
Ali’s family lives in the same communal shelter as Siham’s. His home in Aleppo was destroyed when a shell hit the apartment building.
Ali was forced to drop out of Grade 5 and help support his family selling spices on a street in Tartous. “I wanted a job to help my family. But what I want most is to go to school.”
Ali’s mother says that her children cannot go to school because the nearby school is full.
“I don’t want to send my children to school far from where we are,” she explains.
“My daughter, who was very good at her studies, had to leave school after second grade. I feel sad that she had to drop out.”
As the conflict enters its third year,
UNICEF estimates that hundreds of thousands of children in Syria have been deprived of their right to education due to displacement and the on-going violence.
“Because there is no fighting here,” one of the volunteers with a partner organization explains, “Tartous is not considered a priority for humanitarian assistance. But the situation is getting worse. More families are taking refuge here with no sign of them being able to return home anytime soon.”
Names have been changed.