Hassan* has four children. He and his family lived under siege in Syria for several months before fleeing to the Bekaa valley in Lebanon
My family and I came from Deir Ezzor. I was with my wife, my three boys and my little daughter. When the shelling was happening the children were getting scared; so scared they were wetting themselves. I also saw four children who were hit by the shelling. It was so tragic. I couldn’t even watch what was happening. Some children lost their limbs.
We had no food, no water: we had nothing at all. It was like that for months. When we didn’t find food in Deir Ezzor we were eating grass. I used to lie to my children and tell them grass is edible. But who am I kidding? The grass wasn’t edible. They were [saying to] me, “Dad, this is grass!” I was convincing them that we bought it to eat it just like everyone else. I also ate it in front of them so they would be convinced. I was watching my kids losing weight every day and I wasn’t able to do anything. My children lost more than a quarter of their weight. They were very healthy before. We didn’t receive any aid in Deir Ezzor.
Every time we were walking there was shelling and we were hiding. Every place we moved to was also under attack. We didn’t think we would get out of the town. We used to stop for one day and walk for two days. It took us two months to get here. We got to a truck and were taken to the borders. We waited there for two weeks at the Lebanese border until we crossed it.
I consider myself living in heaven even though our situation is very bad now. This is a paradise compared to life there.
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