Syrian pilgrims talk of exile and war

MAKKAH — At first glance it's a camp like thousands of others for Haj pilgrims. But this one outside Makkah houses Syrians, among them refugees and rebel fighters, who speak of the horrors of the conflict at home. Fatima, 38, managed to leave Syria after government troops assaulted her home neighborhood of Baba Amr in the central city of Homs, one of the cradles of the revolt against President Bashar Al-Assad. Of that time, she doesn't want to say much, out of fear of being recognized. She simply says she left "because of the killings and the terror." Settled for three years in Qatar, both she and her husband have found work as teachers. Their two young children have gone back to school. Fatima only agreed to talk on condition that she not give her family name and not show her face. It is partly covered by a surgical mask like those worn by many pilgrims for fear of disease. She spoke as a truce brokered by Russia and the United States started in Syria at sundown on Monday, under the cloud of weekend airstrikes on rebel-held areas which killed at least 74 people. The five and a half year old war has killed more than 290,000 people and seen millions like Fatima flee abroad. She dedicated her Haj "above all, to Syria". "All our prayers go to our families there, that God helps them," she said, as another Syrian pilgrim passed carrying a newborn in a cradle. A few hundred meters (yards) away, two men wearing the male pilgrim's simple two-piece white cloth are in discussion. Hung from their necks with a cord marked Syrian Haj Committee are cards with their names and the number of their pilgrim camp. The committee is run by the Turkey-based Syrian opposition and has managed the Haj for the past four years. Saudi Arabia, which backs the rebels, stripped the Assad regime of its right to send Syrians on the pilgrimage. This year the opposition registered 12,850 pilgrims, Syrian Haj Committee spokesman Abdel Rahman Al-Nahlawi told AFP. He said the committee sends all Syrians who ask, regardless of political opinion, provided they have a passport. Damascus does not recognize the committee and accuses it of discrimination against would-be pilgrims from government-held areas. "We are here at the Haj as free Syrians, to say that the regime of the tyrant lies when it says Syrians were deprived of the Haj by Saudi Arabia," said former business student Abdullah Abu Zeid. The chubby-cheeked man whose face is framed by a chestnut beard said he had to give up his studies because of the war. He comes from Anadan, a rebel-held town just north of Syria's battleground second city Aleppo. He said he would return to his hometown straight after the Haj despite the long bombardment by government forces that has reduced much of it to rubble. Mohammed Limam, 26, was a first-year student of Arab literature in Aleppo until the war forced him, too, to drop out. He said that now he is a fighter for the rebels who "resisted in the face of bombardments and destruction". He said he had never left Syria before and the first two days away were hard. "I left for the Haj but right after I will go back and if God wills it, we will liberate all of our country," he said.