Syrian fuel assault witnesses coerced into false testimony face new threats at house
In central Damascus, you possibly can be forgiven for doubting {that a} struggle had ever occurred.
The traditional previous metropolis within the Syrian capital hums with life, with road distributors hawking sweets and jewellery as crowds push by each other. The slender passages and the splendour of websites just like the Umayyad Mosque bear not one of the scars of the nation’s devastating 14-year civil struggle.
Barely a kilometre away lies one other world. The Damascus suburb of Jobar, mendacity simply throughout a busy freeway from the Outdated Metropolis, is completely demolished. A key entrance line for years, each single constructing there was battered into oblivion by artillery and airstrikes.
It’s the first suburb main into Jap Ghouta, a belt of slums and orchards that shaped a key stronghold for insurgent forces contesting the rule of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Amongst these battered districts, one slum rises above the remainder: the city of Douma. One of many casual capitals of the Syrian revolution, Douma was a precedence goal for the regime’s retaliation, leaving scars which can be seen on each single constructing within the city at this time.
One in every of these assaults was far worse than the remainder. On April 7, 2018, a Syrian Military helicopter dropped a barrel onto one of many buildings under. It didn’t explode upon touchdown, however launched a far deadlier payload: chlorine fuel. The fuel flowed down from the barrel’s touchdown place on the third ground into the constructing’s basement, choking dozens of ladies and kids who had been sheltering from the bombs.
“This whole stairway was crammed with our bodies,” stated Abdurahman Hejazi, a neighborhood who witnessed the assault. “They had been foaming on the mouth, drowning in their very own lungs. Most of them did not survive.”
The assault not solely led to mass casualties. It might quickly function in a better drama the place a few of its survivors had been pressured to falsely testify that it had by no means occurred in any respect — an act that may earn a few of them scorn and hatred from their neighbours, and finally make them lose nearly every part.
‘How may we presumably inform the reality?’
The 2018 fuel assault, which killed not less than 40 individuals and injured a whole lot extra, got here on the tail finish of a brutal seven-year siege of Douma and the remainder of Jap Ghouta. The Syrian regime, alongside its Russian and Iranian allies, sought to lastly expel rebels from the capital’s environs and safe victory within the battle for Damascus.
The chemical strike successfully broke insurgent resistance within the space, resulting in an evacuation deal that noticed native rebel teams transported to rebel-held territory in northern Syria, and the Assad regime reasserting management over Douma simply days later.
The location now could be fully unremarkable, simply one other nondescript alley in a maze of derelict streets. A single poster on the wall memorializes 4 who died within the assault.
For Hejazi and his good friend Omar Diab, it led to a seven-year ordeal.
“We each went to the underground discipline hospital close to right here to assist deal with the victims of the fuel assault,” Diab stated, talking lately in a barely furnished condo immediately subsequent to the location of the strike. “I used to be simply making an attempt to clean off the kids — to clear the fuel out of their eyes and face. There was a video of us that went viral. That is how they discovered us.”
“They,” on this occasion, is Russia and the Assad regime. After the assault, Moscow rapidly went into harm management mode for its ally.
It rounded up 17 Douma locals — Hejazi and Diab amongst them — and introduced them to The Hague, Netherlands. There, they had been made to testify to the Group for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) that the fuel assault in Douma had been “staged” by insurgent teams or the White Helmets, a civilian rescue group.
“They took us first to Moscow, to ensure we understood what we had been presupposed to say there [in The Hague],” stated Diab, whose then-11-year-old son Hassan was additionally dropped at testify.
Others on the journey confirmed this. Three Syrian medics from Douma informed AFP the Assad authorities immediately threatened their households with a purpose to pressure them to disclaim the fuel assault. Western nations decried the convention, with France’s envoy to the OPCW describing it as an “obscene masquerade.”
“Our members of the family — those who had survived — had been nonetheless in Douma,” Diab stated. “How may we presumably inform the reality, with them as hostages?”
Whereas that have was harrowing sufficient, worse was to return.
Rumours, threats emerge
As soon as Diab and Hejazi returned to Douma, they got new residences by the Assad regime — not as a reward, however to extra successfully watch them and guarantee their loyalty, in line with the 2 males.
This was interpreted by many different residents within the city, Diab and Hejazi say, as proof that they had lied in regards to the deaths of their associates and neighbours in trade for particular privileges. Rumours additionally unfold that the lads had acquired particular safety permits that enabled them to bypass the numerous army checkpoints on the town.
“We started to obtain threats rapidly after that,” Hejazi stated. “At first they had been simply indignant feedback and soiled appears, however quickly it grew to become clear that one thing extra severe may occur. I started to really feel like my life is at risk.”
Idlib is the final huge pocket of insurgent energy in Syria, and taking it again would assist Bashar al-Assad reassert whole management over the nation.
The state of affairs grew so tense that each males would try to flee the nation in 2023. Hejazi went to the border with Lebanon, close to the city of Talkalakh, a infamous smuggling hub. Whereas he was ready to be taken throughout, he was found by a Syrian military patrol and arrested, after which he was overwhelmed severely for greater than 9 hours. He was introduced again to Douma and informed to by no means try to go away the city once more, not to mention Syria.
Diab opted for the authorized route, with related penalties. He went to resume his passport, after which he was taken by Syrian army intelligence and jailed for 17 days. There could be no escape for him, both.
Each males admit that they had some hope when the Assad regime was toppled on Dec. 8 final 12 months. That quickly proved false.
“Three days after the regime fell, HTS (Hayat Tahrir al-Sham) fighters got here to my home,” Diab stated, referring to the insurgent group that ousted Assad and runs the brand new Syrian authorities.
“They threw me onto the road, telling me to by no means come again right here. I wasn’t even capable of take any of my belongings — all I’ve now could be actually the garments on my again.” He’s now residing together with his dad and mom, on the exact same road the place the fuel assault occurred.
Accusations of taking bribes
The identical occurred to Hejazi. His house was seized by a neighborhood sheikh who moved to Saudi Arabia years in the past and has amassed sizable affect in his native Douma since then.
“I can not go to the brand new authorities about this, as a result of [the sheikh] has quite a lot of locals right here that love him,” Hejazi stated. “If I push the problem, I’d get kidnapped and even killed. They’re associates with the fighters from the north [Idlib, HTS’s longtime headquarters], they usually have all the ability.”
Hejazi had been planning his marriage ceremony on the time of the regime’s fall and his eviction. Now, with no house or possessions, that has been postponed indefinitely.
A brief tour across the neighbourhood confirms what the 2 males say in regards to the widespread dislike for them.
“I do know a few of the individuals who went [to The Hague] had been threatened by the regime,” stated Ziad al-Zaher, a 47-year-old mechanic. “However others undoubtedly took bribes. The regime gave them privileges in trade for mendacity.”
Even a few of the different witnesses introduced by Russia to the OPCW convention really feel this fashion. Tawfiq Ali Diab, who misplaced his spouse and three daughters within the assault, has an intense dislike for Hejazi and Omar Diab.
Caolan Robertson, a Kyiv-based journalist who met the lads in December for his personal story, stated, “Once we met [Tawfiq], he was screaming on the street, saying that he did not wish to speak to us as a result of we had come from speaking to Abdurahman [Hejazi].”
“He stated that [Hejazi and Omar Diab] had taken regime bribes, that that they had lied for their very own acquire,” Robertson stated.
‘Why does nobody assist us?’
Hejazi and Omar Diab categorically deny taking any bribes.
“We had no selection in something,” Diab stated. “The regime put us in these residences and we couldn’t do something about it.”
Utilized by the Assad regime and despised by their neighbours, Hejazi and Diab face an inconceivable state of affairs. Neither feels protected residing in Douma, however neither has any hope of escape or redress from the brand new authorities, both.
“Our solely hope is the worldwide neighborhood, speaking to the media,” stated Hejazi, taking an extended and nervous drag on a cigarette.
“These nations like France and Switzerland, that ship delegations right here, they are saying human rights are vital to them. Why does nobody assist us? Are they ready for one in all us to be killed?”
