Tragedy echoes in children's screams on Hama's empty streets

12 August 2011
ÜNAL AYDIN, HAMA

The central Syrian city of Hama, which was stormed by the army at the start of the month in an assault that killed more than 100 people, according to activists and rights groups, has turned into a ghost town in the literal sense.

Almost all houses in the city, which was once home to 700,000 people, seemed abandoned, while the residents who remained in the city locked themselves into their houses, leaving the streets entirely empty.

The siege of Hama, also the scene of a 1982 massacre, began on the eve of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Troops sent in by Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad’s father, Hafez al-Assad, overran the city and crushed Islamist insurgents, killing many thousands of people.

On Thursday afternoon, 10 journalists from Turkey arrived in Hama to follow the recent situation in this Syrian city. The journalists left for Syria following a statement that the Syrian army had withdrawn tanks and heavy weapons.

Allowing journalists to visit Hama for the first time since the military offensive began was one of the recommendations Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu conveyed to President Assad on Tuesday. Giving similar permission to journalists to visit the city of Deir al-Zor was another piece of advice from Davutoğlu to Assad, and Ankara will look at whether this advice will be heeded in the coming days, Turkish officials told Today’s Zaman on Thursday. The Turkish journalists were escorted around Hama, as the government tried to show that the military presence has been reduced.

There were no tanks or armed units on the streets of Hama. Yet, apparently because of being terrorized by the appearance of buildings that were hit by Syrian forces earlier during a crackdown in which activists said scores of people were killed, residents prefer to stay in their homes, fearing that they may again be targets of these forces.

Having said that, most residents assume military forces are still in the city. Nobody could blame them for such an assumption as there were dozens of soldiers stationed in Assi Square in Hama, which had been the main converging point for hundreds of thousands of protesters in recent weeks. While soldiers have been patrolling the empty streets of the city, the armed units and tanks that withdrew from the city were waiting at certain points just outside the city.

Their presence close to the city was evidence that they are ready to enter the city again to put down any uprising if that fire is lit again.

The small number of civilians on the streets pretended as if they had witnessed no crackdown and as if no tanks had entered the city. After speaking with them for a while, one understands that these are from pro-Assad groups who were assigned to explain to foreigners coming into the city that “everything is all right.”

Some other civilians, apparently terrorized by the soldiers’ presence, said they were not in the city when the operations were launched.

On one side the presence of soldiers, on the other side propaganda by pro-Assad civilians almost enabled the journalists from fully and freely touching the reality on the ground. However, the screams in the eyes of children who were trying to drag the journalists by their arms in order to show them traces of the crackdown were the only real voices that the journalists heard.

The children’s insistence on their effort also indicated that this fire of uprising will not end in the near future. The only thing that could not be controlled by the soldiers were children who especially wanted to show the Hamidia Mosque, which was hit by rockets during a nightly Ramadan prayer, or “tarawih,” which follows the breaking of the fast.

The soldiers could not prevent the children from reaching the journalists since they apparently hesitated to take any action against children in front of foreign journalists.

As some children openly said, “They attacked from aircraft and via rocket-launchers,” some others dared to shout slogans saying “Let the Assad regime be destroyed.”

One of them was masked, and only his eyes were visible.

“For 50 years we have had the same administration in this country,” he said.

“You see us, we have no weapons, but they are attacking us with tanks and planes. And I tell President Assad that even though it will be difficult, we will remove you from power,” he said.

During the short period of time when Turkish journalists were in the city, children in a way became the voice of this silent and oppressed city.

Source: Today's Zaman.
Link: http://www.todayszaman.com/newsDetail_getNewsById.action?load=detay&newsId=253597.