MEET HUSSEIN

Illustrative picture © Lisanne van der Schors for Medair

My name is Hussein and I am from the Latakia Governorate in northwestern Syria. I have three sisters and two brothers, most of them married and living with their own family. I used to live at home with my parents, and my aunt was staying with us to help my mom and dad who had a lot of health issues.

A day before the first earthquake, I travelled to Tartous to get medicine for my mother. I spent the night there at a cousin. At 4:15am, the earthquake happened. The building was shaking so bad and I started screaming. My cousin tried to comfort me saying “don’t worry, it’s just an earthquake, not bombings”. We didn’t know how bad it really was. But when we weren’t able to reach anyone from our family back home, we started worrying more and quickly got in the car to go home.

On the way, my brother-in-law messaged and informed me that our building was down and that my parents had passed away. I reached home at around 6:30 am and saw the devastating situation with my own eyes. Our building was in rubble and rescuers were on top trying to see what they can do. We were all trying to help remove the rubble. The weather was horrible that day, with a lot of rain, which didn’t help. We were using our bare hands until equipment arrived from the civil defense department. The body of my aunt was discovered first, shortly before our neighbor’s two children who lost their parents in the earthquake. My parents’ bodies were retrieved at 11:30 am and many more neighbors were still under the rubble.

We took their bodies to the local hospital. I have no words to express how devastating it was to see my parents dead as well as many neighbors and friends. Many were also very badly injured and in pain.  We then returned to the building site when another earthquake happened. We panicked and ran away but later returned to help recover bodies of our neighbors and neighboring buildings and friends. In our small village alone, 11 buildings collapsed and 49 people died.

Personally, I know I am lucky to have survived, but I lost everything. I had a house, a car, clothes and many belongings. Now I’m back to ground zero, even below zero actually. For 40 days after the earthquake, I stayed with my friend. Then I moved around between my sisters’ places and friends’ as well. I need a permanent place to stay and cash for rent and clothes. In all this ordeal, the church was so generous, and I thank them so much for their support.

During the funeral of the village doctor who also died in the earthquake, I met an old work friend who had come to pay her condolences. She stayed in touch with me, always asking if I needed anything. After a few days she invited me to her church, and told me they had something for me there. I went and the church gave me a food basket. At the church I met the pastor and his wife and many other people. Although I am not Christian myself, they were all very welcoming and I felt like I was at home. Later on they helped me with another food basket, and a group of four people from the church came and visited me in my sister’s house where I now live, since I lost everything in the earthquake. Their visit meant a lot to us. They gave more material support, but it also truly boosted our morale and gave us some hope back.