With the ceasefire in Syria mostly
holding and more and more areas joining the truce, families long
separated by war are finally being reunited. RT’s Lizzie Phelan
talked with two families whose stories are alike, yet at the same
time are very different.
Areej was taken from the city of
Adra in Damascus province. Militants pointed a Kalashnikov at her in
front of her two young daughters and abducted her. After three years
of captivity, she is now safely back at home with her husband and
children.
“That moment when I saw my
daughters, I started screaming like crazy – I could not believe it
– I felt like I wasn’t really seeing them… I hugged them and
cried, but I didn’t feel as though I was hugging them – I felt
like I was hallucinating,” Areej told the RT crew.
She described how, after being
kidnapped, prisoners were unscrupulously divided between the various
rebel groups fighting in the area and were moved around.
“At first we were in the
custody of Jaish al-Islam, then they separated us between different
factions. Every militia fighting in Adra was rewarded with more
captives according to how effective they were on the battlefield. The
biggest group of captives was awarded to Jaish al-Islam.”
She and her husband Ghais also
explained that along with many others, Areej was taken not to be
killed, but to be used in the militants' scare tactics.
“It’s worse than death. If
I know my wife is dead, then ok, she is dead, [but] every day they
would call me and tell me they would cut her arm off or her leg, that
they will take a photo of her arm that they cut off and send it to
me. This was their way to frighten me,” Ghais recalled.
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