by Aeham Ahmad
On that day, seventy-one emergency aid packages were distributed. On January 20, it was forty-one packages. On January 21, another twenty-six had been handed out. Then it was over for a while.
All in all, 138 emergency aid packages had been distributed, as noted by UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness in one of his daily press releases. The phrasing of those press statements was always neutral, always couched in the language of diplomacy—what else could he have done? And yet, underneath these sober phrasings you can catch glimpses of the aid workers’ despair. Every day, they drove up to the Watermelon with a truck full of rice and sugar, and then they weren’t allowed to pass. There were always reasons. Perhaps a mortar shell had exploded at the distribution point the day before, or a firefight had erupted the previous night. Or a driver, who had tried to bring the aid packages to the checkpoint in a small van, had been killed by sniper fire. Or simply because, for whatever reason, the powers that be didn’t want us to have food.
On January 30, the UNRWA successfully handed out 1,026 aid packages and on January 31, 980. A success. Each package weighed about fifty-five pounds, ten days’ worth of food for a family of eight. According to the UNRWA, two hundred packages meant that a thousand people had a thousand calories per day for a month. At least they wouldn’t starve.
But that was it. Once more, the supplies stopped coming. The UNRWA volunteers were waiting at the Watermelon. And we were waiting a few hundred feet away, at al-Reyjeh Square. In the following months, my parents and I got up at six every morning, had our cinnamon coffee, and then walked down Yarmouk Street toward the distribution point. At a safe distance from the checkpoints, my father and mother asked me to sit in the shade to wait. They usually returned empty-handed.
Back then, I didn’t know why. But today it is possible to read about it, in the daily updates of UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness:
February 1, 2014
A large crowd has gathered near the distribution point. The situation is tense. Evidently, the people of Yarmouk are lacking even the most essential items.
February 20, 2014
The UNRWA resumed food distribution to civilians in Yarmouk, Damascus, after a break of eleven days. We welcome the support of the Syrian authorities.
March 16, 2014
It’s rare that a spokesman is at a loss for words. But after three years of conflict in Syria, words have lost their meaning. They shatter in the face of this tragedy. Their meaning disintegrates. Taking this into account, I am now publishing 17 photos.
[Among them was the picture of January 31.]
March 20, 2014
Chaotic scenes were on display in Yarmouk yesterday, as crowds of hungry and desperate people made it impossible to distribute food.
March 21, 2014
After only two hours, the UNRWA team had to withdraw. The distribution point was under fire from the Yarmouk side. All UNRWA employees are safe. For several hours, hundreds of civilians were trapped between the shooters. Several people had been killed.
April 8, 2014
Time-consuming inspections of relief supplies slowed the pace of delivery in the early afternoon. The UNRWA calls on the authorities to facilitate an increased distribution rate in the coming days.
April 23, 2014
The UNRWA has been informed by the Syrian government that we can resume our humanitarian work in Yarmouk tomorrow, April 24, after a fifteen-day break. We welcome this step.
May 24, 2014
For the first time, the UNRWA has been able to distribute hygiene kits to 690 families. Each kit contains soap, towels, toothpaste, detergents, shampoos, and other hygiene items.
July 7, 2014
Today, there have been dramatic and chaotic scenes when the UNRWA distributed food for the first time in six weeks in the beleaguered Yarmouk district.
At the beginning of February, my parents received their first aid package. As usual, I had brought them to Fedayeen Street. When I saw them going through the passageway, I walked on for a few blocks, to a different exit point at al-Reyjeh Square. Everyone going back home would have to pass by here. The square was large. Bare tree trunks stood everywhere. It was a no-man’s-land, a death zone, besieged by the snipers of both sides. Time and again, heartbreaking scenes played out here.
But this time everything went well. I saw my parents approaching, my father carrying the heavy aid package, my mother guiding him. Thankfully, I had brought my old bicycle with me, a massive vehicle from China. I joyfully hugged my mother, then I strapped the aid box onto the luggage rack. We hurried home and unpacked our treasures:
Eleven pounds of rice
Eleven pounds of beans
Eleven pounds of sugar
Eleven pounds of oil
Seven pounds of powdered milk
Three pounds of noodles
Five cans of mortadella, each weighing seven ounces
We all treated ourselves to a glass of powdered milk. God, it tasted so good! My body shivered as I drank. It was as if the milk went straight into my bloodstream.
Of course, I would never have dared to line up for an aid package myself. The famous picture doesn’t tell the whole story. The UNRWA photographer was facing al-Reyjeh Square from Fedayeen Street. But behind him were three checkpoints. The first one was operated by the General Command, the Palestinian militia. The second was under the command of a Shiite group, and I have no idea what they were doing here. And the third checkpoint was run by the Syrian Army. The United Nations vehicles were parked behind those three checkpoints.
In order to get food, you had to show your ID card three times. And each time, the fighters randomly picked out young men. Perhaps they were hoping to settle some old scores. It was like running a gauntlet.
Hundreds of young men had been arrested during food distribution. The ones who didn’t have anyone to stand up for them. The ones who had been driven half-mad by hunger and who ran straight into the arms of their torturers. That’s why you see only women and old men in the foreground of that famous photo. They were allowed to pass without any problems. Except for the young man with the glasses, the English teacher. After that day, I never saw him again.
The UNRWA boxes saved us from starvation. But many of the people paid for them with their lives. When you joined the line, anything could happen to you. One time, the soldiers plowed into the crowd with a bulldozer, to push back the starving people. Another time, the throng of people crowded against a badly damaged building and the walls collapsed, crushing half a dozen people. And time and again, sniper shots proved fatal.
I spent endless hours sitting at al-Reyjeh Square, waiting for my parents. I heard the uncontrolled sobbing of all the people who came back empty-handed. I saw women looking for their husbands, running back and forth, asking strangers, “Have you seen him? Have you seen him?” Some were hitting their own faces, screaming in despair. And everyone knew that the husband had been arrested.
One time, I saw a guy who came running with a hand brush and dustpan, to sweep up even the smallest traces of sugar from the dusty road to salvage it for himself.
I saw a woman with blood running down her face. Her teeth and nose had been beaten; her cheek was scraped to the bone. But she was laughing. On her head, she was carrying the heavy box with the light blue UN logo. “I’ve got one, I’ve got one!” she cried in triumph.
I saw Abu Omar being shot dead in the no-man’s-land of al-Reyjeh Square. I had known him since my childhood, a giant of a man who made granite and marble tabletops. While waiting for my parents in the shadow of the square, I had met up with his nephew, who told me that Abu Omar wasn’t doing well; he had diabetes and lived alone in a bombed-out building. Again and again, the young man stood up to look for him—then, finally, we saw him.
Abu Omar had actually managed to snag an aid package, and carried it in his arms like a baby. His walking stick lay on top of it and he was swaying back and forth under the load of the package. Then a shot rang out. Abu Omar fell to the ground. Then panic broke o
ut as masses of people started running back to where they had come from. Four men took Abu Omar and carried him away, bleeding from the head, while his nephew hurried after him crying. There was a fresh trail of blood on Yarmouk Street.
The threat of sniper fire was constant. Once, my parents were in the middle of the crowd when shots came from somewhere. Immediately, everyone ran for their lives, the crowds trampling over people. My father and mother, who always held on to each other, were separated, and my father fell.
He cried out for my mother, but she had long since been pushed aside. Then she, too, fell. And someone stepped on her chest.
She managed to get up again, but had difficulty breathing. Something was wrong. She fought through the crowd to get back to my father. His knee was bleeding, his pants were torn. She helped him, and they started making their way back. When they reached al-Reyjeh Square, I saw them. Throwing caution to the wind, I ran toward them, into the no-man’s-land.
From the corner of my eye, I saw a group of soldiers standing on the left, about sixty-five feet away.
“It’s Aeham Ahmad!” one of them shouted. During this period my videos were widely seen on Facebook.
I ran to my parents. “What happened?” I cried. “Is everything all right?”
“Aeham, what are you doing here?” my mother hissed. “Get back! Quickly!”
At any time, the soldiers could have rushed forward and grabbed me. Twenty quick steps, and they would have had me. I didn’t look at them, but I could feel their gaze on me. My heart was pounding and my mouth was dry. My father was limping along, blood running down his leg. My mother coughed and clutched her chest as we hurried on.
If the soldiers pursued us, however, they risked being shot by a rebel sniper. That’s why nothing happened to me. Finally, we crossed an imaginary border and entered the safe zone. Then we stopped.
My mother complained about a sharp pain in her chest. “Your rib is probably broken,” my father said. “We have to get it x-rayed.”
“How long has it been since you’ve seen an X-ray machine in Yarmouk?” my mother asked sarcastically.
When we got home, my mother went to bed. She didn’t get up for several days. Tahani made herb compresses for her. For the time being, my mother was sidelined. For now, my father would have to rely on Tahani to help him get food. But what if the soldiers asked her questions about me? We came up with a story. She would simply say, “I don’t know anything about him. We’re divorced. He’s probably dead.”
The next morning, we tried again. We got up at six, drank our cinnamon coffee, and left. Once again, my father’s disability made life a little easier. At least we didn’t have to awaken in the middle of the night. When we reached the line, thousands of people were already waiting. But on days when the crowd wasn’t too big, people let him pass.
We must have stood in that line about ten times per month. Every few weeks, we managed to snag an aid package. And to celebrate, each of us had a glass of powdered milk.
Despite this hardship, despite these terrors—or maybe because of them?—the first six months of 2014 turned out to be the most productive time of my life. Music was just bubbling out of me. During those months, I composed 160 songs, almost one per day. In the mornings, we lined up for the UNRWA box, then we went to get water or clover. In the afternoons, the “Yarmouk Boys”—that’s what we called ourselves—met in the store to rehearse. We briefly practiced a new song, then we pushed the piano out into the streets and used our music to make light of our misery.
The Politician Has Finally Moved His Ass
The politician has finally moved his ass
and sent a delegation from the camp
A delegation left, a delegation came
One delegation brought the next
Oh, what times we’re living in
I can’t sleep anymore, my stomach growls so much
Oh, what times we’re living in
I can’t sleep anymore, oh my!
There were more and more delegations
and with them came promises
Promises and more promises
while around us people died . . .
At the end of January—two days had passed since our first performance—the Bukra Ahla editor came to my shop. A normal YouTube video received around several hundred clicks. But we were at over forty thousand, within just forty-eight hours. He was giddy with excitement. He asked if we could do a few more videos.
Over forty thousand! I was elated that people seemed to like what we were doing. I thought about it for a moment—a brief moment—and then I agreed. The next day, we performed again. Mahmoud Tamim suggested playing on Lubiya Street, in Yarmouk’s former garment district. We wanted to show how empty and deserted it now looked.
The guy from Bukra Ahla tagged along, shooting another video of us. Not too long ago, that kind of thing had made me very nervous. But now? It made no difference anymore. Who cared if there was one video of us or ten? If the regime wanted to arrest us, they already had more than enough rope to hang us with. So why not go on?
Our third performance was in front of the rubble of the Park of Pioneers, where the first barrel bomb had been dropped on Yarmouk. Now it was a no-man’s-land, full of debris. Our latest composition was called “Rain,” and had lyrics by Ahmad Sallam, the bald-headed, communist friend of my father:
You cannot conquer the people, no you can’t
You’ll choke on your own tear gas
You can break the young man’s bones with your batons
But you cannot conquer the people, you invaders
No, you cannot conquer us
When night falls
Dawn is coming
Everything had gone well so far, but one thing annoyed me. The guy from Bukra Ahla kept pushing us. It seemed like our success had gone to his head. He suddenly wanted us to thank the “Bukra Ahla film crew.” Later, I realized they were putting ads before our videos. That’s when I had had enough. What kind of message were we sending here? My friends and I were trying to raise awareness about the siege, about starving to death, and suddenly an ad for sneakers pops up? No thanks!
For a while, we moved our videos to a Facebook page called Photos from Yarmouk. Raed, my IT wizard friend, helped us out. He showed us how YouTube worked and created a Facebook page for us. We moved my old Rama electric moped into my apartment. Now all we needed was someone to push the pedals; then we could upload our songs onto the internet.
When I saw that people in Europe watched our videos, I became giddy with joy. There were comments from people with foreign names—we had viewers in cities like Hamburg and Berlin. It was incredible! Our voice was being heard!
One day, a man approached me on the street. He lived in my neighborhood, I had seen him before. He introduced himself as Marwan. He liked what we were doing and asked if he could join us. “Yes, of course!” I said. And so the Yarmouk Boys had one more voice. It’s too bad that Marwan wasn’t a great singer. He growled like a bear. But he wrote wonderful lyrics. I must have composed about twenty songs with him.
I very much enjoyed the time with the Yarmouk Boys. We had a lot of fun together. We regularly argued about where we should perform. “In front of my building!” someone would say. “No, in front of mine!” someone chimed in. And then I would have to decide. Whenever we pushed the piano through the deserted streets, we forgot about our empty stomachs. We felt powerful. We weren’t alone anymore. This was our revolution. We had a mission: We wanted the world to see what was going on here. We wanted to show how Assad was killing us, and that we were standing up to him.
One day, I decided to invite all of the Yarmouk Boys over for dinner. I had some rice left over. One and a half pounds, to be exact. It was worth three thousand Syrian pounds at the time, around six dollars. The main course was rice with Asian spice mix. For dessert, Tahani made rice with powdered milk. It was a feast! There is a video of it online. Everyone was sitting cross-legged at a long table, laughing. Just like in the
old days.
After a while, the first journalists started approaching us. At first, it was only a few, but their numbers quickly grew. I kept asking the other members of our group if they wanted to be interviewed. But the only ones who volunteered were Mahmoud Tamim and myself. At some point, our videos were broadcast across the Arabian Peninsula via satellite TV. Suddenly, people as far away as Tunisia knew who we were.
Q: Why are you doing this?
A: We’re protesting against the siege.
Q: And why else?
A: Life here is very sad. We want to create a little bit of joy.
Q: Have the people from the choir ever sung before?
A: No, this is their first time.
Q: What kind of jobs did you have before?
A: We were carpenters, salesmen, bakers, bricklayers, music teachers.
Q: And why the piano?
A: Because the power is out!
Q: Why do you play in the streets?
A: We want people to see what it looks like.
Q: What’s your message to the world?
A: Don’t let us starve to death.
Green Mint
You, who’s calling out between peoples
“Death is spreading over my land,
Madness and murder, kidnapping and hunger,
It’s ripping my heart out of my rib cage.
Bloodshed, fire and light
A tragedy is crossing the sea.”
Yarmouk conjures up its children
between the rubble and tombs
plant a flower on the sun
It calls you and screams:
“Come back, my displaced people
The mint is still green
A rose is waiting for you
Come back and water it, poor child
Water it with your tears,
It’s waiting for your return.”
People started giving me poems all the time. There was even a poem about the UNRWA package that had been written by Hisham Zuawi, a friend of my father’s. This frail man, elegant and reserved, was later gunned down by a sniper while returning from picking up his aid package. He was still clutching the UNRWA box when he died.