34-37 Degrees South - 2023

Tears of Homeland
Fatima Sayed
The calamities did not stop crushing us, they stabbed us in the heart
of life, the pains became great, and the responsibilities weighed heavily
on our shoulders.
We are a nation that embraced death until we became familiar with it,
and it became part of our daily routine. We are no longer afraid of it.
The war has been going on for more than twelve years, which claimed
millions of lives and has not ended.
Some of the people became displaced, refugees in a country of different
languages, culture, customs, religion, and laws. They missed their
family; some of them left their parents in old age. Parents who had
raised them and still tried to take care of them even at this stage, but
they went, leaving tears and broken hearts.
As for others in inhumane prisons, they faced trumped-up charges
and torture to death, daily. They wished to die a thousand times while
they are alive. The cells are overcrowded, and the number are huge. All
because they demanded freedom from the dictator whose policy was
based on genocide, killing, displacement, compulsory conscription,
and stole the country’s capabilities. This was the price of freedom paid
by the Syrians.
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For the people who migrated across the sea their options were limited.
Either death in their home country or death by drowning, facing the
high waves for a better life in Europe. Syrians have become food for
fish, many of them died, and lost in the middle of the sea. The bodies
of children and women were scattered on the beaches, and their
symbol was Ryan