It is called "Valley of fountains" because there are 360 of them. In reality, the tears of the families who live there would be enough to give it its name. It is one of the places that paid the highest blood toll in this war.
Among hills softened by olive and pomegranate trees, we arrive at our destination. A simple metal gate divides the sunny road that runs along the valley from an ocean of pain. Nidal and Kifah are waiting for us. They are friendly but theirs is apparent calm: the one that comes after a storm of emotions.
There is no greater pain than losing a child. They have lost their one.
Ayham was a young 24 lieutenant in service to Deir Ezzor: he is one of the "fallen by mistake" under American bombs (but others also participated ...). He had been in the city for eight months, assigned to a unit of 400 men. 84 of them, according to official sources, on 18 September were killed by planes of the so-called anti-Isis Coalition. On the body returned to the family, the strafing shots were clear: it would have been an F-16. According to witnesses, the prolonged action was preceded by a release of bombs at high altitude.
The father indicates a photo above close to that of his son. It is that of his brother, Ayham's uncle, Jihad, an army general killed by the Kurds with five gunshots a month earlier in Al Hasakah, 60 kilometers north of Deir Ezzor. For disfigurement the body was returned five days later.
They were in frequent contact. Knowing the shortage of supplies to Deir Ezzor, the general sent part of his rations to his nephew.
Not far from the Iraqi border, Deir Ezzor is practically a fort on the Euphrates in the middle of the desert and media void. An incredible silence from TV and newspapers that ignore a few thousand men who have resisted damned and ferocious beasts for years. What until now we have called "Caliphate" is nothing more than a band of assassins like there are others with different names, more or less presentable. Thanks to the direct and indirect military support of the United States they have torn and mauled this country: it is an uncomfortable truth, but real and angry in the pain of kind and innocent families.
The voice of the mother is missing in the tight and severe story. He listened all the time with great demeanor, but it is a dam about to overflow. It seemed to us to timidly intervene a couple of times. We ask you to speak.
"Ayham was a boy who would not have killed an insect so sweet was his soul ...", says Kifah. "He was my only child but also my best friend, my confidant. We felt every day and he always tried to reassure me ... "
Tears take over and it is up to the father to continue.
"The last phone call was special. He was worried and asked me for forgiveness for anything that could have hurt me. For how Ayham behaved there was certainly no need. Two hours later he was killed ".
We too are moved. The simplicity and dignity of these people makes us feel small and spoiled. We remain silent for a few minutes in front of a simple cup of tea.
Time is marked by the beads of prayer necklaces spread between the fingers .....
On the photo that stands out in the room is the father of the current Syrian president, Hafiz al Assad, the "lion" of Damascus: he was Syria in person for 30 years.
We ask if things would have been better with him.
"Every age has its reference man. Today the president is Bashar and I respect him. It is not his fault what happens ".
We then ask the father of Ayham what a miracle he would do if he could.
He sighs and thinks about his son. Then he holds back the tears and says with pride all Arabic
"I would return Syria to the time when it was a peaceful and prosperous country: I can not understand what happened... "
Not far from the house, along a path in the middle of olive trees with a biblical flavor, there is the tomb of Ayham. It is a simple and particular place. Silence and a sweet smell of autumn inebriate us. The rumble of war does not come here. Here are not the numbers, the calculations, the politics, but only pain. Kifah cries like any mother. Now his son is a marble slab, a stone's throw from home.
Salt a gust of wind from the valley. An absurd and contagious sense of emptiness fills us apart. For all this there is no reason.
Text: Giampiero Venturi, Andrea Cucco
Photo: Giorgio Bianchi
