Hi. My name is Mohammed Naghem and I come from the city of Arbin in Eastern Ghouta, the region around Damascus, and I am 15 years old.
Recently I have been trying to take videos with my phone camera in order to show the world what we are going through.
I wanted to describe my plight and the plight of people here and to reveal what the regime is doing to us. I wanted to show the truth that this regime is hiding from the world, I wanted to change my situation and that of those around me, but I didn’t know what to expect.
Since the beginning of 2018, the bombings against us have increased. The regime imposed an unprecedented blockade by increasing the prices of all goods to a level that we couldn’t afford. The ghost of hunger began to threaten young and old. Later, around the middle of February a violent campaign started.
The situation in Eastern Ghouta cannot be described. Fighter planes carried out a ferocious campaign, targeting buildings.
People went down into their basements and their hearts filled with fear with the intensity of the raids and the amount of destruction.
The fighter planes carried devastating missiles, which were followed by weapons of mass destruction in the entire region. They fired missiles, carried out airstrikes, then dropped cluster bombs, “white phosphorous”, barrel bombs, and finally “poison gases”.
I didn’t have a clue about any of these, but slowly young and old began to learn the various types of weapons used.
We lived in our basement for a whole month, unable to see the light of day or distinguish between day and night because of the intensity of the bombing.
We suffered a great deal from lack of food and bread, as well as from illnesses such as bronchitis, and allergies.
All this was nothing compared to our fear, which was unbearable.
Fear paralysed our limbs and choked us. The regime began to target hospitals and basements.
Our country witnessed many terrible massacres, we shed many tears and had no idea what fate had in store for us. We began to prefer death to this living hell.
Hundreds of dead and thousands of injured, some serious, paralysis, mutilation and much more.
Our country was totally destroyed and we were forced to flee.
The first time we emerged from our basement, we wanted to see the sun. Instead, we saw destruction all around us.
It was a scene that made us cry more than we had done during the bombings themselves.
Everyone went to see whether his or her own house was still standing or whether it had been destroyed.
We lost everything; each family lost its house and at least one family member.
People started gathering their belongings in despair, preparing to leave.
I arrived in Idlib with my family, not knowing what awaited us.
What next? The unknown is preying on us.
I stayed with my family in a small house. I had very few clothes.
I was sad, but happy to be alive, to be well and to be with my family, my mother and my siblings, but I can never forget what I lived through.
If the body survives, does the memory also?
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