An Old Kurdish woman from Tal Abyad tells the bitterness of the displacement
Raqqa – North-Press Agency
Zana Ali – Nouraddin Ahmad
The 70 years old woman Zalikha Muslim Ahmad summarized the suffering of her displacement twice in a question she was asked during her talk to North-Press: "What story do you want?!"
Zalikha, who suffers from diabetes and had an open heart surgery not long ago, couldn't hold her tears while she was telling the bitterness of displacement twice.
With her 8 children, Zalikha was displaced to the city of Raqqa since the beginning of the Turkish military invasion in northeastern Syria, she is staying in a house provided to her and her family by a citizen of Raqqa in a neighborhood "north of the railway", where people of Raqqa join with Tal Abyad (Gire Spi) IDPs.
Zalikha Muslim Ahmad, who is from the village of Korek in the countryside of Tal Abyad, and one of thousands of people who have been forced to flee their homes under the Turkish military bombardment, tells the story of her displacement, with the hope of returning home soon.
When asking about the story of her displacement, she replied to ask: "What story do you want?", in reference she was displaced twice.
She continued: "We fled our homes twice, first when ISIS attacked us in 2014", pointing out that, they stayed 20 days in the desert, and then the journey of displacement to Turkey, and staying there for nearly a year.
"We were cleaning the stables and living in them", Zalikha recalls her suffering with eyes full of tears.
"What does he want from us? What have we done to him to hit our children?" She wondered, referring to the Turkish President Erdogan, adding: "We are powerless and we cannot do anything, Erdogan isn't on right, and God will take revenge on him".
Zalikha explained that, when they returned from Turkey, they rebuilt their destroyed houses and started a new life, saying: "This time Erdogan is attacking us with his army", stressing that as a result of aerial bombardment and the sounds of weapons and explosions, they left their home again, to go to the town of Khrab Ashq near the base of the U.S.-led Global Coalition to take refuge before the latter withdrew from there.
Zalikha family wasn't the only one who went to the town of Khrab Ashq, where the Global Coalition base was located, to protect themselves from the Turkish bombardment.
The old woman from Tal Abyad continued saying: "While we were in front of the Coalition base in Khrab Ashq (Lafarge Cement Plant, was the largest Global Coalition base in northeastern Syria), they told us that, the Americans are withdrawing from the base".
"They blew up what was left of their military equipment, and for the fear of the fire and the sounds of the explosions, we kept sleeping in the quarries near the town for five days", Zalikha added.
Zalikha's eyes were filled with tears again as she talked about her suffering with the illness due to the difficulties she suffered as a result of oppression: "I'm old and cannot bear fatigue and displacement".
Zalikha added: "No friends for the Kurds", as pain seemed on her features, while she couldn’t speak more at that moment, then to hope at the end of her talk to return to her home with her children.