After the start of the revolution, I entered Syria clandestinely so many times that I lost count. For years, I was either inside Syria or on its periphery, interviewing Syrians before reentering their country, spending no more than a week to ten days a month at my home base in neighboring Lebanon. The accounts in this book are in part based on reporting presented in my longer Syria book, No Turning Back: Life, Loss, and Hope in Wartime Syria, published in March 2018 by W. W. Norton.
Ruha and her extended family generously opened their homes and their hearts to me, allowing me to witness their highs and lows over six tumultuous years. I wasn’t with them during those first raids when Ruha opened the door to security forces, accounts re-created by interviewing every member of her family who was in the house on those two days, but I was present or in direct contact with them for just about every other event thereafter. I was with Maysaara as he returned home to Saraqeb in July 2012 after recuperating from gunshot wounds. I watched Ruha and her siblings change into their new Turkish clothes and how excited they were that Baba was finally home. I spent a lot of time with Ruha in their family complex and spent many a night in their tiled courtyard and in their basement during shelling.
I was in the Saraqeb hospital in summer 2012 as the dead and wounded arrived on that terrible day when rebels battled for the Kaban Checkpoint, and I stood near that little girl as she was being operated on without anesthetic.
I was with Ruha and her family as they sneaked across the Syrian border into Turkey on that harrowing journey, and I shared their first night in Turkey with them in a small, cramped room. I was with Aunt Mariam and Uncle Mohammad as they cowered in the basement with other relatives, listening to the sounds of shells exploding all around them, and I was with the women sitting in Grandmother Zahida’s living room on that cold winter’s night with no electricity, listening to them debate what kind of Syria they wanted and their fears about Islamists.
The account of the unexploded canister and the chemical attack on Saraqeb was based on interviews with local activists (including unpublished footage privately shared with me, showing one activist hiding the canister) as well as a December 13, 2013, report by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) titled United Nations Mission to Investigate Allegations of the Use of Chemical Weapons in the Syrian Arab Republic.
Maysaara called me when he stood outside the smuggler’s office in the Turkish coastal city of Mersin, sharing his thoughts about whether he should risk getting to Europe or stay in Turkey. I spent a lot of time with his family in Turkey and returned to Syria in 2016 to see Maysaara’s factory and the life he was building for his wife and children while he waited for them to join him.
I met Talal in Beirut weeks after his family was kidnapped from their home in Blouta in August 2013. I had previously been with rebel fighters along the Latakia front line soon after the families were captured and the eleven Alawite villages were seized. I remained in contact with Talal and with others whose families were in rebel captivity for years, as well as the activists trying to free them. Their plight was also detailed in an October 10, 2013, Human Rights Watch report titled You Can Still See Their Blood. I knew the Jabhat al-Nusra emirs in charge of the prisoners’ fate and the Free Syrian Army unit keeping watch over them.
I spent time in Dr. Rami’s field clinic in Salma over the years and traveled with him and his team as they treated people from their three remaining ambulances after the field clinic was destroyed. I saw Talal’s young niece, Reema, when she was carried into the Salma clinic by a foreign fighter. I was in that ambulance in 2016 as it climbed through Idlib’s hills, headed to the church where Hanin and the other women and children were imprisoned. I saw Hanin in captivity, the only journalist to do so, and I taped her short message to her father. In 2016, I managed to get permission to briefly enter Damascus, despite the multiple arrest warrants against me, to attend a government-sponsored conference. I slipped away from the conference to go to Mezzeh 86 and let Talal hear his daughter’s taped voice. I interviewed Jawa and later Hanin and her cousin Sally about their experiences. President Assad’s comments in 2017 after their release were filmed and uploaded to the internet. I knew some of the many changing interlocutors on both sides of an issue I had followed closely since the raid in August 2013. Like everything in this book, my access came from being there and sticking with the story.
Rania Abouzeid has reported from the Middle East and South Asia for many years. A fluent Arabic speaker, she has written for TIME, The New Yorker, National Geographic, Politico, and a host of other publications. Her print and television journalism has been honored with numerous awards, including the 2015 Michael Kelly Award, the 2014 George Polk Award for Foreign Reporting, and the 2013 Kurt Schork Award in International Journalism. Rania’s first book for adults, No Turning Back: Life, Loss, and Hope in Wartime Syria, also garnered awards recognition. She lives in Beirut and can be found online at raniaabouzeid.com.
ALSO BY
RANIA ABOUZEID
No Turning Back: Life, Loss, and
Hope in Wartime Syria
Copyright © 2020 by Rania Abouzeid
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Names: Abouzeid, Rania, author.
Title: Sisters of the war : two remarkable true stories of survival and hope in Syria / Rania Abouzeid.
Other titles: Life, loss, and hope in Syria
Description: First edition. | New York : Scholastic Focus, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Audience: Grades 10-12 | Summary: “Since the civil war in Syria began in 2011, over 500,000 civilians have been killed and more than 12 million Syrians have been displaced. Rania Abouzeid, one of the foremost journalists on the topic, follows two pairs of sisters from opposite sides of the conflict to give readers a firsthand glimpse of the turmoil and devastation this strife has wrought. Sunni Muslim Ruha and her younger sister Alaa withstand constant attacks by the Syrian government in rebel-held territory. Alawite sisters Hanin and Jawa try to carry on as normal in the police state of regime-held Syria. The girls grow up in a world where nightly bombings are routine and shrapnel counts as toys. They bear witness to arrests, killings, demolished homes, and further atrocities most adults could not imagine. Still, war does not dampen their sense of hope. Through the stories of Ruha and Alaa and Hanin and Jawa, Abouzeid presents a clear-eyed and page-turning account of the complex conditions in Syria leading to the onset of the harrowing conflict. With Abouzeid’s careful attention and remarkable reporting, she crafts an incredibly empathetic and nuanced narrative of the Syrian civil war, and the promise of progress these young people still embody”— Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019051722 (print) | LCCN 2019051723 (ebook) | ISBN 9781338551129 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781338551136 (ebk)
Subjects: LCSH: Syria—History—Civil War, 2011—Juvenile literature. | Syria—Social conditions—1970—Juvenile literature. | Syria—Politics and government—2000—Juvenile literature. | Families—Syria—Juvenile literature. | Refugee children—Turkey—Juvenile literature. | Damascus (Syria)—Juvenile literature. | Sarāqib (Syria)—Juvenile literature.
Classification: LCC DS98.6 .A265 2020 (print) | LCC DS98.6 (ebook) | DDC 956.9104/21—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019051722
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019051723
First edition, September 2020
Cover photo:© Meysam Azarneshin/Shutterstock.
Cover design: Keirsten Geise
e-ISBN 978-1-338-55113-6
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