Defecting Syrian soldier tells of his marriage torn apart by brutal conflict in Homs
Syria’s brutal conflict is not only tearing communities apart - families and even marriages are also falling victim. A defecting soldier from the besieged town of Homs tells his story.
As Major Haitham Emhammed prepared to return to Syria from his hiding place in Lebanon and fight for the overthrow of President Bashar al Assad’s regime, his wife called him repeatedly on his mobile phone.
Mrs Emhammed, who is still inside Syria, wasn’t calling to urge him to fight for freedom, or even to beg him to be careful. His wife, a member of the Alawite ethnic group that make up Mr Assad’s hard-core of support, was calling her Sunni Muslim husband to lambast the rebel movement he has joined, and bemoan the fact that he had left his family.
“She calls me every two hours to tell me how awful it is that the protesters - the ‘terrorists’, are killing the Alawite soldiers,” said Major Emhammed.
An army defector aged 42, he has been married to a wife of the minority Alawite sect for 15 years. He fell in love with her instantly when he saw her on a bus, and wooed her at some risk to his safety - they had to marry in secret after members of her family were outraged when she fell for a Sunni.
But true love conquered all, they had two children - a son, now 14, and a daughter, now 11.
For years they lived happily in an Alawite neighbourhood of Homs. Then in March, as the Arab Spring swept across the region, the Syrian uprising began in their own town, which has since suffered more than any other in the country.
As it took hold, their religious differences started to matter, and then began to tear their marriage apart.
Now he fears that he may never see his family again, at least not as a loving husband and father.
“My wife, she loves the army and she loves Bashar al Assad. She watches the state television and becomes saddened by the soldiers and state security men being killed every day,” he said, at a small house in Akkar, near the Syrian border, one of a string of small towns that have become a refuge and gathering point for men like himself.
His wife - whose first name Major Emhammed declined to give for her own protection - believed what state television told her, as did her family and community. The major, although a privileged man because of his marriage and an officer in the army, saw a different reality each day in the streets.