Yusuf in a hospital in his hometown of Homs before flying to Jeddah for treatment of his bullet wounds. — Courtesy photo JEDDAH – Yusuf (not his real name), 18, hails from the western Syrian town of Homs, which has borne the maximum brunt of the government's wrath against anti-regime protesters. He is presently in Jeddah for treatment of his bullet wounds he received during a rally in his hometown of Homs on June 17. He was admitted to GNP (Ghassan Najeeb Pharon Hospital) here last Tuesday and was discharged a day later after doctors applied fresh dressing to the wounds. “In the beginning of the unrest, I was neutral. I was neither anti-government nor pro-government. I did not camp out with the hundreds of men in front of the clock tower in downtown Homs in the peaceful protest of April 18. Passing by, I noticed men sitting on the concrete, others had rugs. They had sandwiches and juice and tea. None was armed,” Yusuf told the Saudi Gazette in an exclusive interview. “At 1:30 A.M. the sound of gunfire rattled our home. It was like a clap of thunder that would not end. It was horrifying; we could only assume the worst. After the gunfire finally receded, we heard the call from the mosques that unarmed protesters had been slaughtered by the army,” said Yusuf, who lives in a small house in Homs with his two sisters and mother, who is a widow and looks after the family of four from her income as a teacher. “That was the turning point for me. I waited until dawn to go outside. I saw dead bodies packed into garbage trucks and government SUVs. To cover up their heinous crime, fire trucks were hosing the streets to wash away the blood. Not a single shop window was left intact. After killing defenseless men, the army damaged cars and businesses, ransacked shops, and stole expensive watches. Distraught families came to carry the dead bodies that remained strewn on the street,” he continued.From then on, Yusuf knew that he could not turn his back on his people's fight for freedom. Fridays marked the day of the largest protests. Saturday was the day of funerals, to bury the dead. The bereaved families and those at the graveyard were also attacked. It was not uncommon for the father or brother of the deceased to be killed during the burial. “The government used all sorts of punishment methods. They cut off the electricity if we demonstrated at night. For an entire month, the city's municipality did not collect the garbage. The disgusting smell of rot and waste filled the air. A group of young men used a pickup truck to collect all the garbage from our neighborhoods. When we drove to the city dump, two armed soldiers guarding the dump yelled at us: Go throw the trash at your doorstep! So we took the waste to an empty strip of land. Buses for public transportation were confiscated and used by the army. Snipers were planted on top of buildings and war planes shelled the minarets of mosques.” A tear-gas canister went off beside Yusuf at a protest rally. “It makes you choke and gasp for air. I had a burning sensation all over my body and it felt like the skin on my face was peeling off. I ran madly so the wind could cool off my face. When a soldier started singing in devotion to Al-Assad, I snapped. Without a second thought, I picked up a stone and hurled it toward the soldiers. Suddenly three bullets hit me. Blood started gushing out of my abdomen and I fell to the ground. I could hear the commotion around me but I could not speak. My friends thought I was dead and were about to leave me to save someone else's life, but one of them insisted on checking me. When he detected a pulse they rushed me to Al-Birr hospital.” That was the only hospital that was safe because it was encircled by strong Bedouin men to protect the patients and the staff from the army that charged into other hospitals and captured the wounded and any physician who treated them. He underwent major surgery to remove the bullets from his body. Yusuf said: “I was in excruciating pain. My operation cost 70,000 Syrian Liras and someone who I never met before came in and paid my hospital bill. When I was discharged from the hospital, I could not go home because the army collected the names of the injured from hospital forms and they would search my house. I moved from one place to another and spent each night with a different friend or neighbor.” After his injuries, Yusuf's mother could not bear to stay in Syria so they applied for Umrah visas and fled to Jeddah. He has regular checkups here with a doctor to make sure his wounds heal properly. How long they will remain here, no one knows, but their relatives will not permit them to leave till peace returns to Syria.
