Ali Zawawi:
'Before the revolution, I was an English teacher. I was continuing my studies at the University of Damascus. I was married, and lived in Damascus. During my time in Damascus, I always dreamed of leaving Syria, and travel abroad somewhere where I could be more free, and have more freedom. Because in our country, people are not treated like a human. They are treated like anything but a human. You can't talk about politics, you can't talk about religion, you can't talk about the economy. You can't talk about anything related to the régime.
It was a taboo to talk about these subjects. People didn't feel comfortable living in Damascus, or in Syria in general. You are always under threat of being taken if you talk about any of these topics, or if you touch anything that's related to the régime. I felt that I have to move, but I had to finish my studies first, and in Syria, military service is obligatory, so I had to go to it. I didn't know how to run away from it.
As long as you are studying, you can avoid it, until a certain age, which was 26 or 27, my age at the time, when it's mandatory, you have to go through this service. It doesn't go through anyone's mind that you're serving the country; actually you're serving the officers, you're serving this sectarian régime that's controlling Syria.
As long as you are studying, you can avoid it, until a certain age, which was 26 or 27, my age at the time, when it's mandatory, you have to go through this service. It doesn't go through anyone's mind that you're serving the country; actually you're serving the officers, you're serving this sectarian régime that's controlling Syria.
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The revolution was at its very beginning as I was due to go for military service. At that moment, I decided to go to Ghouta, which was seemingly liberated. I wanted to join people who were resisting the régime at that time. I wanted to help them in any means. So I took my family and moved to Ghouta.
There were so many who wanted to go from the régime to the liberated areas, but they didn't know how. Alhamdulillah I had some friends in Ghouta, who told me how to get inside, because the routes almost all had checkpoints or were blocked, so I had to go through different routes. So I took my family. It was very dangerous to go inside Ghouta, because there was so much bombing, airstrikes. I had never been in this situation, my family with me, my wife and my child at that time. I had only one child at that time.
Prisons in Syria were already full before the revolution. There are taboos you can't talk about. So whenever someone talks about Islam, you practice it in the correct way, they don't like it. So you are taken to prison, where you might spend years and years. If you talk about the economy of the country, if you talk about the politics of the country, if you talk about the régime, they might take you to jail and spend years and years there, or you might be killed inside the prison. It's the main reason, not just for me, but for many people, and for the guys who got involved in the revolution.
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In the beginning, Ghouta was half way besieged. There were two roads open with checkpoints. Nothing large could enter, for example big amounts of food or fuel couldn't go inside unless they were smuggled, inside cars or under the cars. After two years there was a complete siege, and they blocked all the roads, and it became a military area.
There were 400,000 people inside Ghouta, and all of them were besieged. You can imagine how difficult it was. Life became so primitive. There was no electricity. There was no fuel to run cars, to run generators. We didn't have any access to food supplies, even to clean water.
So life was very difficult for everybody. Three or four months after the siege started, you could look at people in the street as if they had gone through a severe diet. They became very skinny and pale.
Some of my friends lost their lives trying to get some plastic. Plastic had a very high price in there, because they would melt it down in a special way, and turn it into gas, diesel and gasoline. So at the end, Ghouta became free of plastic. You could see no plastic at all. So the guys had to go between us and the army, in places where the army could see you sometimes, to take a plastic tank or something like that. One of my friends lost his hand, he got a sniper shot in his hand under the shoulder, and other people died, just trying to get some plastic.
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At the beginning, it was only the Syrian army, but as soon as the Syrian army got very weak, because some of the soldiers started to run away from the army coming inside Ghouta, or to go to other towns to join the revolution, Hezbollah came in from Lebanon, and started fighting for the régime. Also, just after a few months, we heard people coming from Pakistan. Shia people coming from Pakistan and other areas. After that, Russia started coming in and helping the régime with airstrikes.
Damascus is the heart of Syria, and it really threatened the régime if it was taken, the régime would fall right away. We were just two kilometres away from the heart of Damascus. So if they couldn't get rid of the rebels inside Ghouta, it would have been a big problem for them.
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The chemical attack in 2013 was the biggest one, and I was in the area where we received this chemical attack first. I was in Zamalka city, and I can remember it was a very awful day. It was 2 o'clock in the morning, and I was sleeping, and it was very quiet at the beginning. Suddenly I heard someone running in the alley, and he was shouting, and I could hear that he couldn't breathe very well. I was shouting that there was a chemical attack. Until that moment, I was waking up, and I couldn't comprehend what he was saying exactly, I couldn't comprehend what was going on.
Just a few seconds later, I felt that I was out of breath; and my wife next to me woke up, and she had the same symptoms, she couldn't breathe well. So I understood there was a real chemical attack. I asked to run away upstairs to the roof. She didn't know why, but suddenly they started throwing more missiles, these are chemical missiles. So I told her to go upstairs right away, and I carried my son upstairs to the roof. She shouted at me to go downstairs, because this is what usually happens when there is a bombing. I shouted at her, look this is a chemical attack, and we have to go upstairs. This is the first measure we were told if we were hit by a chemical attack, because the gas usually goes down.
Just a few seconds later, I felt that I was out of breath; and my wife next to me woke up, and she had the same symptoms, she couldn't breathe well. So I understood there was a real chemical attack. I asked to run away upstairs to the roof. She didn't know why, but suddenly they started throwing more missiles, these are chemical missiles. So I told her to go upstairs right away, and I carried my son upstairs to the roof. She shouted at me to go downstairs, because this is what usually happens when there is a bombing. I shouted at her, look this is a chemical attack, and we have to go upstairs. This is the first measure we were told if we were hit by a chemical attack, because the gas usually goes down.
It's true to some extent, as when we went upstairs, after just five minutes, I felt I was going to faint. I couldn't breathe well. My two children also couldn't breathe well. I had a very small child, just one year old at that time. I tried to put a mask on him, but he couldn't take it, he doesn't know how to deal with it.
So I decided to leave the neighbourhood, alhamdulillah I had a car at that time. It was destroyed later by an airstrike.So I took my family and some of my friends in my car. We went north to a town seven kilometres away from Zamalka city. We stayed there for eleven hours. I couldn't breathe well at that time. I had very strange symptoms. My pupils were very, very small. All the people who were around you had small pupils. We had problem breathing, our bodies were very weak.
The first thing I went to a far area just to get rid of the gas that was around us. I went to a clinic there, but the clinic was full of people, and the symptoms like the ones that I had were mild in comparison, and they didn't treat me. Usually they give you an injection that helps you to breathe better. So I didn't get an injection, I just went back to my friends house. Subhanallah the symptoms we had very very mild, but when we came back home after twelve or thirteen hours, it was a disaster.
The next alley in the neighbourhood where I used to live, the families all were dead. Some of them were dead in bed, some were dead out in the street trying to get help. Some of the medics were also out in the street dead, they were trying to help other people. Some families were dead, and they couldn't find them after three or four days, because they didn't know how to react, so they went inside the bathroom and closed the doors to keep the gas outside, but sarin got inside and killed all the families.
The first thing I went to a far area just to get rid of the gas that was around us. I went to a clinic there, but the clinic was full of people, and the symptoms like the ones that I had were mild in comparison, and they didn't treat me. Usually they give you an injection that helps you to breathe better. So I didn't get an injection, I just went back to my friends house. Subhanallah the symptoms we had very very mild, but when we came back home after twelve or thirteen hours, it was a disaster.
The next alley in the neighbourhood where I used to live, the families all were dead. Some of them were dead in bed, some were dead out in the street trying to get help. Some of the medics were also out in the street dead, they were trying to help other people. Some families were dead, and they couldn't find them after three or four days, because they didn't know how to react, so they went inside the bathroom and closed the doors to keep the gas outside, but sarin got inside and killed all the families.
There are some very sad stories. I have one of my friend. He was was newly married. He died with his wife and his mother-in-law, in the same house, very close to my house.
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I think it is a much bigger number of dead than the UN confirmed. Medics would say there were about two thousand people who died at that time, and really you could see the hospitals, the clinics; they were full of children, of women, of different ages; they were dead. They choked, they couldn't breathe.
We had some remarkable stories of people who were considered to be dead, this sarin gas stops their heart, and after two hours the heart is beating, but very faintly, so the doctors think the person was dead. So they said that some people were buried alive. I'm not sure of this story, but it's what I heard, and we saw some people who were between the dead people, ready to be taken to the graveyard to be buried, but somehow they made a movement, and some people realised they were moving, and picked them up from among the dead people.
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From the very beginning, the Assad régime started to be very weak. They tried to get help from Shia groups and militias from Lebanon, from Pakistan, from other countries, but it was useless. Even though the fighters who were fighting the régime didn't have big experience in fighting, but they had a cause.
Subhanallah we had a cause to defend. And at the same time, the feeling that we had after moving from the authority of the régime to a different authority of Allah, even though we were bombed with airstrikes with tainted barrels, with all these types of weapons that we never thought we would be bombarded with, we felt happy. We felt free. We wanted to defend that feeling. We wanted to have our freedom.
They used chemical weapons because they wanted to take Ghouta on that day. They were planning to take Ghouta, and they thought by throwing these chemical weapons, and killing massive numbers of people, we would be weak. And this is exactly what happened. When they bombed us with the chemical weapons, after three hours they began a huge military offensive on Jobar, Zamalka and Ein Tarma. These are three big frontlines, but subhanallah they were not successful, and many tanks of the régime were hit, and some the soldiers left the tanks working and ran away. Hundreds of soldiers were killed at that time. So basically they wanted to take Ghouta, they wanted to finish this issue.
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The main attack was this one in Zamalka and Ein Terma where two thousand people died, but the régime continued using chemical weapons, more than a hundred or two hundred times. We didn't have ISIS inside Ghouta, so it was all coming from the Assad régime. They used different types of gases, but the worst one was sarin. They used chlorine gases too, too much actually. They used it on a daily basis when there was a military offensive.
Of course, there is no accountability, and this is what we were shocked by. How the international world is not reacting to these kind of attacks. And not only that, the reaction that they gave and showed wasn't up to the level. Killing two thousand people in one day, this is horrible. It's a horrible thing.
The other thing that shocked us is they only talked about the chemical attack. They didn't talk about other things. There were about twenty people death toll every day from different kinds of weapons. What about these people? Is it permissible to kill people with tainted barrels? Is it permissible to kill people with airstrikes? So we don't understand how the international world acts.
The other thing that shocked us is they only talked about the chemical attack. They didn't talk about other things. There were about twenty people death toll every day from different kinds of weapons. What about these people? Is it permissible to kill people with tainted barrels? Is it permissible to kill people with airstrikes? So we don't understand how the international world acts.
People here on the ground, Syrian rebels and civilians, they actually know what's happening, and they understand how the international community is acting, and why they are acting like that.
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One day, there's a highway between us and the régime. We had ribaat over there, and some of the guys had ribaat on the frontline. So the régime, suddenly sends a woman, and she was naked. They sent her to cut the highway, to come to the liberated area. The guys are looking at her, and are shocked at how she is coming in. There are régime snipers, and suddenly they shot her in the leg or somewhere, and she passed away. The guys tried to reach out to her, with ropes, with metals, to grab her, but it was very difficult. So they decided to send one of the brothers there. He ran very quickly to her, but he received another bullet, and he died just next to her.
Then another brother ran to her to cover her body, but he also got killed. Then they sent a brother with a rope around his waist, and he ran over there to grab the woman. The brothers told me that he died later on, but they could drag the woman inside our area, and they buried her. It turned out she was one of the sisters in prison, and they wanted to humiliate us with her, by sending her naked to our areas.
During this revolution, the régime killed about 1.5 million people, and displaced more than 14 million others inside and outside Syria. This is not new, this régime did the same thing in 1982. They killed more than 40,000 people in Hama. There was an uprising that year, and they killed them in only seven days. So this régime has been like that, not just recently, but for a very long time.
It's true that Assad has taken these areas, and they are not in the grip of the rebels any more, but the situation is not very clear in the media. They say it has settled down for the régime in these areas, for example, in Ghouta, in Homs, Hama, different parts of Syria especially Daraa, but the situation is different. Every now and then there are assassinations of high-ranking officers. Soldiers are very afraid to go inside Ghouta. Every now and then you hear there is a checkpoint attacked by rebels who were left behind.
So it's not settled any more, and even people who are inside are fed up with this régime. They thought that maybe the people who were left behind there, they thought at the beginning they might have a better lifestyle when the régime comes back after they break the siege, but it turned out to be so much different. Now they are regretting the days of the siege, and want the rebels to come back to their areas, but unfortunately it's not happening now.
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We are still working, and here in Idlib people, displaced people and even the people of Idlib, are helping us, and we are working together, inshallah, to go back to Ghouta, to Daraa, to Homs, to Hama, to all these cities that were with us before. Inshallah we will get rid of this régime very soon.'
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