A Sad Visit to Deir El-Zor

Ward al-Assi

“Deir El-Zor 10 kilometres.” I was soon to see that this road sign – the last before the city of Deir El-Zor – was the only thing still left intact in the area.

I got off the bus about one-and-a-half kilometres away from the city’s entrance, and instead took a side road to get to my neighbourhood.

The further I walked, the stranger the place seemed. What I saw looked nothing like the city I was familiar with. There were numerous burnt or damaged buildings, and the main roads and some side streets were strewn with burnt-out tanks and cars, spent bullets and the rubble from demolished buildings.

There were dozens of checkpoints. After being thoroughly searched at one of these, manned by the regular army, I kept going.

The city was desolate, a sense of fear mixed with sorrow hanging over it. I passed through other checkpoints, and still I could not believe my eyes. I had been here only three months earlier – what had happened?

There were almost no pedestrians, except for those who had arrived on the bus with me. The only cars and buses on the roads belonged to the security forces. Most shops had been wrecked or looted. The army controlled the entrances to major streets. Smaller neighbourhoods were not under military control, but were at risk from army snipers.

I crossed the last of the checkpoints manned by regular troops and entered a neighbourhood next to ours, the only route to get there. Each neighbourhood was separated from the next by earthworks, metal barricades and rubble that had once been buildings. There was not a single wall unmarked by graffiti or bullet holes.

Makeshift checkpoints, bearing the flags of either the regular army or the rebel Free Syrian Army, had been created using smashed walls, car doors and pieces of furniture.

Many of the young men standing at the entrances to neighbourhoods had masked their faces with independence flags. Some had grown beards and long hair and were carrying firearms, giving them a completely different appearance to the way I remembered them.

The fighting had made them harder. They used to be civilians – many of them students – but now they were soldiers.

When some of them stopped me, I told them who I was. One of them, his face covered, recognised me. He kissed me on the cheeks and said, “Don’t worry. Protecting neighbourhoods is now part of our duties.”

I could not even guess who he was, because the mask over his face muffled his voice. He asked for someone take me as far as the last street so that someone else could lead me into my own neighbourhood.

That someone proved to be a boy of around ten years old, with dark hair and a dirty face.

On our way there, he told me a little about the past five days. He said the regime’s forces had destroyed the country, but he could not fight for the FSA as he was too young. He said he wished he could never grow up. The boy also told me about his two brothers who were killed fighting with the FSA, and his neighbour who lost a leg.

“I would like to die at home, with my mother and younger sister,” he said. “I don't want to die alone.”

I asked how many children were left in the neighbourhood.

“There are 12 of us boys and five girls,” he replied. “Abu Abdu's family might leave today or tomorrow, and that would reduce the number by three.”

I then asked him what kind of games he and his friends played. He said nothing, instead pointing at the street ahead of us and suggesting that we should not cross it, and take a left turn instead.

“They fired several artillery shells into this street today,” he explained.

Whenever I asked him about particular people in the neighbourhood and what had happened to them, he gave terse answers. “There are only 14 families here,” he said.

The boy saluted a masked man standing round the corner from our neighbourhood, telling him, “I'll drop this guy off and come back to see you. He's my friend's cousin.”

When we got to the last street in this neighbourhood, he handed me over to a young man standing there and asked him to make sure I got to my area.

I stopped for a while to look at the broken electricity poles, the deserted buildings and the very conspicuous holes left by bullets and artillery shells on building facades. The guy did not interrupt me, and just watched me as he pointed out areas that had been devastated the most.

“I know this neighbourhood quite well, so you don't need to come with me,” I told him.

I saw his eyes narrow at this, but I could not tell whether he was angry or smiling. He started off in front of me, saying, “There are a lot of snipers and we know where they are, so I have to take you.”

We got as far as the street just outside my neighbourhood.

“Run across quickly and watch out for the rubble. May God be with you!” he said.

I ran into the neighbourhood where I was born. At that moment, I felt I was being born again, only this time in the midst of destruction.

I spotted my house, but it was not as I had known it. I heard a man's voice calling my name, but I did not turn towards it – my eyes stayed fixed on my house. An artillery shell had crashed into the room where I was born. Most of the neighbouring homes were also damaged, some of them completely destroyed.

The man kept calling to me, and as he got closer, I could see he had a mask over his face. He put his hand on my shoulder and kissed my head. I recognised him as my cousin.

He grabbed my hand and took me into the house. Inside, I found my father, my aunt and her husband. My mother, brother, and maternal and paternal uncles had all left the city.

I sat with them, but did not have the courage to ask them how they were. It was enough to see the state the city was in. Power cuts and going without food for two days or more were no longer a big issue; they had become the norm.

My family had not yet come to terms with seeing their city destroyed. They wept for it, just as they did for the dead.

I left my house burdened with my family's sorrow as well as my own. I wandered aimlessly around the neighbourhood. Many of the houses were deserted, while the rest were occupied by one or two members of the family who owned them, mostly young men.

There were no grocery shops, so food supplies were being delivered to people by humanitarian committees and the FSA. I was told that 49 young men from our neighbourhood had been killed, as well as an entire family.

I did not want to give away my feelings of disappointment or grief to the young men I came across. Their talk of reconstruction and a return to normal life inspired hope. They were sick of war and bloodshed.

The only thing that had not changed about the city was its river, the Euphrates. I asked someone to take me there, but he said, “The road to the river is full of snipers and it's impossible to reach it.”

The time flew past, and the fighting became more intense as it grew dark.

I spent my last few hours in Deir El-Zor with my father. I tried hard to convince him to leave the city, but without success.

“Stop trying, son. I’m not going to leave Deir El-Zor,” he said, smiling.

At dawn, I left to the sound of heavy shelling. I felt that the city I had just visited was not mine.