Desperate Syrians pine for loved ones after fleeing Raqa

AIN ISSA: In four years, Mohammad al-Hassan, 62, heard his son’s voice once: when the young Syrian soldier called a radio show to send regards to his family trapped in jihadist bastion Raqa.

He and his wife Nazira, who never left their home town in northern Syria during years of Islamic State group rule, have seen their family torn apart by the country’s complex war.

Out of their nine children, they have not seen their two soldier sons since 2013, nor their two married daughters since 2014.

After escaping Raqa with their other children three months ago, they dreamt of being reunited with their loved ones.

“We don’t know if they are dead or alive,” said Nazira. “And they don’t know anything about us.”

The pair sit in scorching summer sun at a displacement camp here, 50km north of Raqa city.

Raqa in 2013 was the first provincial capital to fall out of government hands, two years into Syria’s conflict. That was when Mohammad lost touch with his two sons, who were fighting elsewhere in the country.

After IS overran the city in 2014, Mohammad and Nazira could not travel to neighbouring Hasakeh province, where two of their married daughters lived.

“IS suffocated us in Raqa,” Mohammad said.

“The only time we heard news of his son was when he sent greetings to his father on the radio,” said Abu Samir, a friend who eslike caped with Mohammad’s family.

“IS monitored us and said, ‘if you talk to them, you will be guilty of speaking to nusayris’,” Mohammad said.

Nusayri is a derogatory term jihadists use for Alawites, the minority community from which Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s clan hails, but IS uses the word to describe Syrian government forces in general.

In April, as the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces drew closer to Raqa, Mohammad’s family decided to flee their home in the eastern district of Al-Meshleb.

They piled onto motorcycles with just the clothes they were wearing and made the dangerous journey north to the camp here. About 7,000 displaced people live there, officials said.

Although they are safe, Mohammad and Nazira have still not been able to reach their daughters in Hasakeh. They are trying to get permission from the Kurdish police to leave the settlement and head to Hasakeh.

This week, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs appealed to camp authorities to increase freedom of movement for displaced people from Raqa, who are often required to have a local “sponsor” before they can leave.

Nazira’s 27-year-old daughter is living through the same heartwrenching ordeal as her mother.

Raida’s husband was also a soldier in the Syrian army, and she lost touch with him in 2013.

“I haven’t heard from him since rebels entered the city,” she said, chestnut-coloured hair peeking out from her headscarf.

She gave birth to their third child, Issam, just a month after she last saw her husband.

Under IS reign, Raida could not leave her home without a male guardian, so her oldest son Faysal, 10, would accompany her everywhere she went.

For years, she persistently sought out any news about her husband — to no avail.

“Every time I encountered a former soldier, I would show him a picture of my husband.

“About a year ago, someone recognised him. They said he may have remarried,” she said. AFP