Um Mohammed in her house in Northern Syria (Photo Credit: Violet Organization)
Um Mohammed, 46, lost her husband in an airstrike in Hama, and her house was destroyed. She moved with her son Mohammed, his children -- Aisha, 7, Ghousson, 5, and Mohammed, 3 -- her daughter and 4-year-old granddaughter to a small village in the countryside of Idlib. They all live in a two-room house which is bare and unfit for living, with no doors or windows. Um Mohammed hangs pieces of fabric to cover the openings.
Neighbours gave them thin mattresses and blankets to spread on the floor, while the makeshift kitchen stands in one corner. Water is stored in a few plastic containers, and the bathroom is actually a pit toilet next to a space where they wash themselves.
Um Mohammed and her family have been displaced several times. They left Hama to another area where they went through besiegement for almost two months. “We had to drink the water in the cars’ radiators to quench our thirst,” she says.
The besieged families were later allowed to leave the area to go to Idlib, before they were displaced again by the fighting. Um Mohammed says she had no option but to head to the village she now lives in with her family and to stay in this small, unfinished house. Um Mohammed who was injured in the airstrike that killed her husband can’t work, and her son suffers from a kidney disorder.
She worked for a while as a cleaner in a school, where a local aid organization paid her 100 USD per month. This helped her secure some of her household needs, including food, heating and winter clothing, as well as medicine for her son.
“I wish we had a fixed income so we could live in a house big enough for all of us. I wish I could buy all the food that my children crave and new clothes that they have been dreaming of since the beginning of the war,” says Um Mohammed. In reality, she has to depend on her neighbours to get by.
Um Mohammed dreams of rebuilding her house in Hama, and gathering her loved ones there, as well as sending her grandchildren back to school to get a proper education.
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