Kidnapping, enforced disappearance, deprivation, torture, and humiliation were not the worst I endured during my imprisonment; there was something far more horrifying.
We had once been happy with our simple life. My husband would return from his work in construction, washing away the day’s fatigue at the dinner table. We would gather, and our children would scramble to sit in his lap or near him. Between every bite, he would give his children the best portions. He had never concerned himself with public affairs, until the Syrian revolution changed everything. He began speaking more about the injustices people faced, reacting deeply to the killings and abuses committed by the security forces against civilians. Our situation was made even more tense because we lived in a mixed area of Sunnis and Alawites. We had been neighbors living peacefully, but suddenly, some turned against us, reporting to the security forces those who sympathized with the revolution. They went further, taking up arms and forming Shabiha groups to raid demonstrations, beat, kidnap, and kill unarmed youth alongside the security forces.
My husband’s protective instinct led him to secretly join a Free Syrian Army unit formed by some locals. The Shabiha, together with the army and security forces, expanded the circle of victims, targeting women, children, and the elderly during house raids to search for anyone joining, aiding, or sympathizing with the Free Syrian Army.
My husband was careful not to reveal his involvement. Even though he left his construction work to spend most of his day with the rebels in the orchards, he wrapped his face in a scarf on the way. One day he called, asking me to wait for him with the children at dinner, even if he arrived late, for he missed them dearly. I stayed up until midnight playing with the children so they would not sleep before he returned. Then the neighbors knocked on our door to tell me that the security forces had arrested my husband and another young man at the town entrance. The news hit me like a thunderbolt. I tried in vain to call him or ask about him; his phone was off, and though we knew where he was detained, no one dared intervene. His alleged crime, they said, was being a “terrorist.”
My beloved husband, Abu Khaled, with his tall, straight posture, broad shoulders, and strong arms like reinforced concrete, carried a tender heart like that of his children, hiding his tears from us for days. Whenever I noticed him, he would tell me about the torture and abuses suffered by prisoners, both men and women. Now, he was detained among them. His protective nature had driven him to take up arms in defense of protesters and civilians. Abu Khaled had been the center of my life, filling the void with his love, leaving me busy with household needs and the children. For the first time, he left me alone.
During the months when he worked with the Free Syrian Army, defending civilians, we ran out of savings and my children often went to bed hungry. Though some locals occasionally helped by bringing necessities, I decided to rely on myself. I became a street vendor, borrowing goods from a wholesale friend of my husband and paying him back from the sales I made from house to house. I left my thirteen-year-old daughter at home to care for her siblings while I returned exhausted each evening to a night of suffering, anxiety for my husband, and nightmares filled with images of him from former detainees’ accounts. His fate was unknown; every time I asked, people said to expect the worst.
Five months later, I heard news of one young man’s release. I ran to his house to ask about my husband. A surge of life filled me when he told me that Abu Khaled was alive. I spent eleven months hoping for his release, praying with certainty that we would reunite. At the start of Ramadan, he returned to us. His smile was quiet, but his eyes radiated a tenderness that overshadowed the visible effects of his torture. He repeatedly asked me to forgive him for the suffering he caused and promised not to join the Free Syrian Army again to ensure he would never leave us.
He resumed his work in construction. Our happiness was indescribable. Every evening, he would bring sweets and dinner, trying to make up for what was lost and erase the memory of fear and grief. But living safely in one homeland was impossible. On the first day of Eid, the town was raided. We watched fifty armed men in vehicles from the windows, targeting our neighbors. They could have raided our house; after Abu Khaled’s release, he had done nothing, spoken no word against them, yet it did not prevent them from breaking our door and taking him and our son Khaled.
I clung to my husband and begged the officer to leave my ten-year-old son, who only left the house for school. The officer shoved me, threatening to take my son unless I remained silent. My daughter, used to caring for her brother, clung to him, crying, and they kicked her against the wall. They hurled obscene insults at me, threatening to take my daughter as well.
My suffering during my husband’s first imprisonment paled compared to this. But now he was with them, and so was my child. For three days, I heard that Abu Khaled had escaped from them at the Torba checkpoint in Qatana. I could hardly believe it, knowing the danger of that checkpoint and the severity of torture there. My fear for my son outweighed my joy at my husband’s escape. As I expected, they raided our house, searching and questioning me.
I steadied myself and answered with relief, “Where are they, Saleh and his son?” I assumed that my son Khaled had survived with his father. But the officer struck my head, dragged me into one of their vehicles, bound my hands, and blindfolded me, driving me to what I later learned was a branch of military intelligence. They pushed me down a long staircase into a basement cell, locking the door for two days. Then they brought me to interrogation, demanding I reveal my husband’s location. I swore I knew nothing of his whereabouts. They did not believe me, calling me a liar, and threatened endlessly. They beat me brutally, breaking my leg, torturing me until I lost consciousness. Each time I woke, a new round of torture and humiliation awaited me for fifteen days. I had no answer about my husband.
They eventually moved me from solitary to a ward with other women. Despite the brief solace of their presence, fear kept me from speaking or answering their questions. I remained in this state for three months until they released me.
Upon my release, I learned that the kind people of my town had collected money to pay a middleman close to the security forces to negotiate my release. Neighbors cared for my young children during that time. I discovered that the patrol that arrested me had burned our house and all belongings, as well as the homes of my husband’s family.
At the door of the military intelligence branch, my uncle, my husband’s father, and a town notable met me. They kissed my head, handed me my daughter and youngest son, and pointed to a car for me to go to my husband. They warned me there was no safety for me in town. I held hope that I would reunite with Khaled and Abu Khaled, wherever they were. My daughter clung to me, my youngest son in my arms, as we headed toward Khan Shaykhun. The driver, familiar with the route, handed money to every checkpoint from what the kind townspeople collected. I remained quiet, barely speaking, promising myself I would keep my family safe.
We finally arrived in Khan Shaykhun, where the Free Syrian Army controlled the area—no Shabiha, no intelligence, no regime army. Hope returned. I embraced my husband, sensing his hidden grief despite our joy. I asked him about Khaled. He hugged me again, hiding his tears. When I asked about my son, he lowered his head, sobbing silently, giving no answer. I slapped both myself and him, demanding to know, fearing Khaled was still detained. He whispered in sadness, “I did not know they had detained him with me. I didn’t know he was beside me. I tricked the guards at the checkpoint at night, overpowered three of them, and slipped through the fields to reach the liberated areas. I didn’t know I left our son with them. I planned to bring you to him, then learned from locals that Khaled was detained by them. The cowards took him in a separate car that followed mine; I didn’t know he was taken with me.”
Their hell pursued me. With every agony, I thought it the worst, only for them to invent even harsher torment. I awoke from unconsciousness with the IV in my hand, trying to gather my memories. I thought I was still in prison. No, I was not; the place was clean. The doctor smiled and checked me, saying the worst was over. I looked at my husband: his teeth were broken, and scars from torture marked his face, unnoticed during our reunion the day before. We embraced again, silent, our only words our shared grief for our son Khaled.
In Khan Shaykhun, there was no fear of arrest, only the constant threat of bombing. We endured four years of suffering together. When the regime, with Russian forces, attacked, we were forced to flee once more to Idlib. My husband treated my broken leg from torture and accompanied me to Turkey for surgery, where I had some pain and disability corrected with implants and plates. We returned to northern Syria to live in Ariha, only to face airstrikes again, which destroyed our rented house, leaving us without belongings or documents. Fearing for our children, we moved to Afrin, where the air threat was less. Abu Khaled stayed close, yet the constant worry for Khaled worsened his suffering. Between regret, longing, anxiety, and anger, his heart suffered, and doctors advised him to avoid stress and exertion.
I remember him, once strong and fearless, whose hands were stronger than iron, and whose heart was unshakable. His story of surviving the deadliest checkpoints in Qatana stands testament to his courage. Yet now, he is haunted by what followed: my detention, my torture, the kidnapping of our eldest son, displacement, illness, poverty, longing for family, fear for our child, and helplessness.
I sit beside him, crying for our son while sparing him the burden. I tell him what I see in the news, trying to give him hope. Each report, each event, I watch carefully, looking for any impact on our son. I have heard that the head of UNICEF visited Faisal Mekdad, the regime’s foreign minister. I wonder if she knows they detained my child, and I plead that she asks about him. I continue to hope that Arabs and Turks will act for our child, and I would give my life to get him back.