The nightmare of my detention is still a daily reality I live with. In my village, they call me “a graduate of prisons,” and my story has become their daily topic, told in differing versions, though they all agree on one thing: despising me. I am often accused with offensive allegations; the kindest among them merely choose to distance themselves and their families from me. I have no response but tears. I grew tired of the hostile stares, so I confined myself to my home and rarely leave it. I do not know whether the way my village treats former female detainees is similar to how detainees are treated in other regions.
My son, who is now thirty years old, suffers from a head injury. At the beginning of the revolution, he defected from the regime. One day, a group of young men from our village came to him, condemning the fact that I was staying with him after my release from detention. They urged him to kill me in order to “wash away his shame.”
He replied to them, “This is my mother, and I am proud of her. She committed no wrongdoing, and she did not go to prison by her own will.”
For seven months, my son remained in this situation, defending me. Whenever he silenced their hurtful tongues, they pursued him with insinuations and mockery. When the regime forcibly displaced us on the green buses from the Homs countryside to northern Syria, we chose to settle in Saraqib, so we would not see anyone from our village. Later, heavy shelling forced us into yet another displacement to the villages of Afrin. My story continued to follow me—in the gestures of the residents and in their looks, identical to those I had endured in my village. My two sons continued to suffer and bear society’s rejection of me, until they grew exhausted and, after three years, decided to leave the area to escape people’s words. They tried hard to take us with them, but I told them that my fate would follow me anywhere. I begged them to leave alone, to build their own future, and my heart accepted that.
I remained alone with my two young daughters. I support them through my work in sewing on my manual machine, and if anything remains, I spend it on my medications to treat illnesses that still accompany me as a result of torture in detention. With difficulty, I manage to keep my daughters in school. The younger one has now reached fourth grade, and her sister Amal is in tenth grade. Amal does not want to marry early, unlike her two older sisters who married many years ago. She repeatedly tells me, “You are the crown on my head. I am proud of you, mother. I do not care about people’s words. I will continue my education, become a lawyer, and reclaim all your rights.” She has a strong personality. One day, she struck a man in the neighborhood because he harassed me. She understands our financial hardship and renounces what other girls demand. She strengthens me when I weaken, so I do not fear for her as much as I fear for the younger one. The youngest calls her older brother “father.” She does not remember her real father, and it is difficult for her to understand why he left us. It is difficult for her to understand why I cannot buy her a biscuit to take to school like her classmates, or why I cannot afford new shoes whenever the old ones become too tight.
In the past, I lived a normal life with my husband and children, and I worked at Al-Bir Hospital in the city of Homs. When the revolution began, I secretly volunteered with the opposition to work at Al-Walid Hospital, which sympathized with and treated the wounded. On the day the regime shelled the Seventh Island area in the Waer neighborhood, many injured people were brought to Al-Walid Hospital until disinfectants, medical gauze, and supplies ran out. Dr. Ubaida said to me, “Sara, you work with me at another hospital. For the sake of the wounded children in front of you, help me bring gauze and disinfectant from Al-Bir Hospital.”
At first, I was afraid and told him that this was difficult for me. He said, “I will be on duty with you at Al-Bir Hospital. When you distribute dinner meals, come to me and I will tell you then.”
When I went to him, he said, “I have secured the required quantity of emergency supplies. When night falls, you will take them and leave.”
At exactly midnight, it was my turn. I took out some garbage bags, and among them I took out the required bag. At the garbage container, I met the young man the doctor had arranged with. He took the bag of supplies from me and delivered it to Al-Walid Hospital.
I repeated this work daily for a week. A woman from the Alawite sect who worked at the hospital noticed me. She asked, “Where were you at this time, when it was midnight?”
I replied, “I went to buy a pie from the shop.”
She said, “And where are pies sold at this late hour?”
I opened the bag and showed her three pies inside. (I had taken precautions and bought them earlier, carrying them with me when I left, as Dr. Ubaida had instructed, so my excuse would be convincing.)
She said, “It is midnight, and you are responsible for distributing dinner. Why didn’t you eat the hospital food?”
I said, “I didn’t feel like eating hospital food. I craved pies, so I went and bought them.”
The incident passed normally. Despite her suspicion, I do not think she exposed me. Nevertheless, I became cautious and stopped transferring supplies. A few days later, I received my salary for January 2016 and went, as usual, to the countryside where my children lived to give them the money. On the way, at the Research checkpoint, they asked for my ID and surprised me by telling me that I was wanted. They took me to the Military Security Branch in Hama and interrogated me there. My detention lasted over two months. My children secured my release with a sum of money provided by Dr. Ubaida.
I expected my husband to be waiting for me. When I asked my children about him, they hesitated before telling me that he had divorced me. The reason, as he said, was that after my detention I had become a disgrace to him, and he would not accept disgrace. I went to my brothers and sisters and found some of them holding the same position, while others were powerless.
I stayed twenty days with my children in the house my husband had abandoned, then returned to Homs to my work. I moved freely using a stamped “security clearance” paper they had given me upon my release, showing it at regime checkpoints and passing normally. This seemed to raise suspicion, and I was arrested by an armed group led by Abu Shaaban, claiming affiliation with the Free Syrian Army. They blindfolded me, removed my headscarf, and dragged me through the street to their headquarters. They accused me of leaking their locations to the regime. I explained my work, but they did not believe me. Had it not been for Dr. Ubaida knowing my situation and contacting them on my behalf, they would have killed me. They realized their mistake and took me to Al-Walid Hospital, where I found Dr. Ubaida and the doctors waiting for me. I was crying from pain due to the beating on my feet. The doctors tried to comfort me and apologized. Dr. Ubaida said, “We will not abandon you. We need you.”
After my arrest by the regime, I had stopped helping to secure medical supplies for Al-Walid Hospital or assisting the wounded. I believed I had lost too much and needed to protect myself. One day, when the regime shelled two areas in Homs—Seventh Island and Fourth Island—with phosphorus, I was at work in Al-Bir Hospital. I overheard a conversation between several pro-regime doctors. One said, “Fragments of phosphorus shells enter the bodies of the wounded and continue burning the cells without stopping.” Another replied, “If they had specialized doctors, they would place soil, medical powder, or flour on the fragment’s entry point, and that would stop the burning.”
I could not control myself. I do not know how I rushed eagerly to Al-Walid Hospital nearby—the distance between the two hospitals was no more than 250 meters. I forgot myself as I ran in my Al-Bir Hospital uniform at 11 p.m. When I arrived, I told the doctor what I had heard. He did not believe me at first. He said it was impossible. I told him the name of the doctor who had said it. He replied, “Let’s try.” He took a handful of soil from a small planter and placed it on the fragment embedded in the body of a young girl lying in emergency care. Indeed, the burning stopped.
He turned to me joyfully and said, “Go back quickly, Sara, before they notice your absence.” I hurried back and found the same Alawite woman standing at the door, as if she had been watching me. She asked, “Where were you?”
I said, “I went to throw out the garbage and came back immediately.”
She said, “But you didn’t finish collecting it; the garbage fills the hospital.”
I replied, “I know. I took out what I could carry and will collect the rest.”
I was certain she suspected me. In the following days, I made sure not to leave the hospital. After three months passed without anyone bothering me, I felt reassured and decided to visit my children in the village. I traveled the usual route from Homs to Hama to the Taqsis area, from where a small boat would take us within three hours to our village. At the Deek al-Jinn checkpoint at the entrance of Homs city, they searched us, took our IDs, and did not stop me. I felt safe then—but safety in this country is an illusion. At the Taqsis checkpoint, they said, “You—get down. You are wanted.”
I tried to explain that there was a mistake. I said, “I was wanted, then I obtained a clearance,” and I showed them the paper.
He said, “No, you are wanted now.”
They took me to the same branch in Hama, detained me for four days, then transferred me to a place called “Al-Amanat,” where I stayed about fifteen days. From there, they took me to another department I could not identify because I was blindfolded. They seated me on a metal chair, tied my body to it with a rope wrapped around me, and bound my hands behind my back. They soaked my feet with water and beat them with the “Ibrahimi”—a metal pipe wrapped in green plastic, named mockingly after Lakhdar Brahimi. They beat me for a long time while asking: “Where are the terrorists? What do you take to them? How do you help them? Where does the weapons enter from?” I kept repeating: “I don’t know anyone. I live in the hospital in Homs and know no one outside it.”
They said, “You help terrorists in the hospital.”
I replied, “Impossible. I help no one.”
Torture sessions lasted between one and two hours and were repeated about five times a day. Between sessions, the officer demanded names of young men working with the revolution in the hospital, saying, “If you tell us, we will release you.” I replied that I knew no one, and I did not believe him.
They brought an electric cable with an iron-like tip resembling nails, heated it, and branded my body with it. The marks are still on my left leg and both hands. I remembered scenes of dead detainees I had once seen at the National Hospital in Homs. I felt death was inevitable and told myself that since I would die either way, I would give them no information about anyone.
My harsh rural life and physical strength helped me endure more. After about a week, they seemed to tire of me and returned me to the detention room. The detained women in my cell tore pieces from their underwear to wrap my burns. Due to the lack of medication, the wounds became infected, and the infection persists to this day—what doctors call a viral infection.
Every evening, they would take some or all of us out to the courtyard they called the “courtyard of stripping.” I witnessed this in May 2017. One night, they seated us—female and male detainees—on the ground and dragged three virgin girls into the middle of the courtyard, beating them and tearing off their clothes until they were completely naked. An officer named Hassan approached, removed his military jacket bearing ranks on the shoulders, dragged the youngest—an eighteen-year-old girl—and began assaulting her while shouting obscene words, declaring that he was taking her virginity. Among the male detainees present were three young men from nearby villages: two from the Khalil family and a brave unknown hero named Basel Hermoush. Basel shouted at them and dragged himself toward the officer to strike him despite his restraints. His soul departed after Assistant Mohammad Shaqif shot him. They did not care. They continued raping the remaining girls before our eyes like beasts—beasts are more merciful.
The girls screamed and wished for death. The detained young men collapsed over Basel’s blood-soaked body, crying in anguish. The guards approached, beat them violently, and dragged them to their cells.
More than once, after an officer named Jamil sat in the courtyard, they stripped both young men and women of all their clothes and forced the men to assault the women. When they refused, they beat them and summoned guards to rape everyone.
They repeatedly took us to the courtyard. We older women were forced to strip while being beaten, simply to humiliate us and complete their sadistic rituals as they raped the girls before us. One of the raped girls, Afraa, entered the bathroom crying and screaming, saying, “Auntie, I want to clean my body of their filth. I don’t know how to clean myself. I hate myself. Their smell won’t leave my body.” I tried to console her, saying, “My dear, this is not your fault. Endure and be patient. God will forgive you.” Each time she was raped, she returned in the same state. One day she stayed too long in the bathroom. We entered to find Afraa—angelic-faced—lying on the floor bleeding. She had cut the artery in her arm and died.
In the same detention center, I witnessed Nabila give birth to a baby boy. I did not ask about the father. She had entered detention pregnant before me. I do not know whether she became pregnant from repeated rape or had another story. During labor, they ignored her screams. She suffered greatly until we delivered the baby ourselves. I tied the umbilical cord and removed the placenta. When she regained consciousness, she tried to kill her baby, and we stopped her. What saddens me most is that she entrusted me with something I lost. When she was released, she wrote her family’s phone number on a bar of soap and asked me to contact them. I lost the number and cannot forgive myself.
I remember two young men from Hama, Mohammad and Ahmad Al-Khalil, cousins. They once brought us out to witness their torture to frighten us into confessing. Under severe beating and torture, one of them died. When the other realized his cousin had died, he lost his sanity, screamed curses at them, and continued insulting them as they beat him until he lost consciousness. Jamal from the coast, Abu Haidar, Ali Al-Nasser, Abu Ali, and Hassan Hanin took pleasure in torturing us. Every morning, they carried the dead in a vehicle, and we never knew where they took them.
Days passed, and I thought the investigation had ended, until they called my name from the cell door. They blindfolded me and took me to an office, removed the blindfold, and asked, “Won’t you confess?” I replied, “I have nothing to confess.” As soon as I finished speaking, a large-bodied man named Youssef Habib Hammoud, known as Abu Haidar, slapped me violently. I asked, “Why are you hitting me?” He said, “Because of this and that. If you were respectable, you would tell us where the terrorists are, what they do, and how weapons enter your areas.”
I said, “I know nothing about them.”
He approached, lifted my head with his hand, pinched my nose shut so I opened my mouth to breathe, then inserted pliers and pulled out one of my upper teeth. I screamed in agony. The investigator told him to stop, saying, “Leave her now; she will confess.” I said, blood pouring from my mouth, “I know nothing.” The investigator signaled Abu Haidar to continue. He lifted my head again, my hands bound behind my back, repeated the act, and pulled out three of my lower teeth. I lost consciousness and only woke up in the Military Hospital in Hama, an IV bag hanging from my hand and a soldier guarding the door. I stayed there for three days. When my condition stabilized, they transported me in a refrigerator-like vehicle back to prison and immediately brought me to the investigator.
He said, “Sara, won’t you confess?”
I said, “I have nothing to confess.”
He said, “We will give you a proposal: either you accept it and leave, or you will stay here until you rot.”
I said, “I am ready for whatever you want, but you are asking me about people I do not know. I have served at Homs Hospital for twenty-two years. I spent my life there and know nothing about the youth of my village.”
He said, “I will ask you for one thing. Do it, or you will rot here.”
I said, “Go ahead, sir.”
He said, “What do you think if we give you a security ID that allows you to pass any checkpoint you want, and a monthly sum of money—fifty thousand liras—in exchange for coming to us every fifteen days and giving us information? You tell us what they do in your village, what they do in the hospital, anything you notice. On top of that, we will give you an additional twenty-five thousand liras. Choose and decide.”
I thought briefly, then said, “Yes, I agree.”
They called the guards, took me to an adjacent room, photographed me, fingerprinted me, and after four hours in detention, they summoned me again. He said, “Your ID is ready. It is late now. Tomorrow morning you will leave, mother—you are now our mother—and you will deal with us as we dealt with you.”
I said, “Thank you, sir.” When I saw the ID bearing my name, I felt hope for release.
The next morning, around nine or ten, they summoned me, took me to the storage office, returned my personal belongings, handed me the security ID and a clearance paper, and gave me fifteen thousand liras.
I left with fear in my heart. I postponed thinking until I reached my children. I was certain of one thing: I would not betray, and I did not know how to deceive them. On my way to my village, at a checkpoint, I heard an officer say I was wanted. I showed him the security ID. His superior signaled him to let me pass. He said, “Go, auntie. God be with you.”
After crossing the passage into my village, I found my children waiting on the other side. They were joyful at my safe return and embraced me. I thought of what they had asked of me at the branch and told myself that I had endured everything, but I would not endure betrayal. I told my children the secret. My eldest son took the ID and the money and set them on fire. I asked him to leave me the money, as we needed it. He replied, “We want nothing from them, mother.”
I embraced my son and agreed with him not to return to Homs. I left my job at Al-Bir and Al-Walid hospitals and cut all ties with them. Then I was struck again by tragedy: my sister, who still worked there as a cleaner, was arrested from her home a year after my release. Her husband and family searched for her for three years without success.
I think of her constantly and wish she were dead, so she would not endure what I endured with the girls in detention, nor be released only to find, as I did, some of our people sympathizing from afar and others no better in their thinking than the people of my village. I remember my husband and sometimes doubt myself and ask: Am I truly a disgrace? If I am not, was the price worth all this? I remember Basel, Afraa, and Nabila and ask who truly deserves all these sacrifices. I remember myself—because of my love for people and my help to them, because of the dream of dignity I lived for their sake. The regime arrested me twice: the first time I was released in exchange for money, and the second time in exchange for betrayal.