Published by MADA MASR
Nata nel 2013, Mada Masr è una rivista on-line di base al Cairo, che rivendica un giornalismo impegnato e indipendente, con inchieste, analisi, approfondimenti e articoli culturali pubblicati in inglese e in arabo.
La difficile, forse impossibile, strada del ritorno per i milioni di rifugiati siriani scappati durante la Guerra Civile. Chi riuscirà a tornare indietro in un paese spezzato?
DI TOM ROLLINS
Beirut — Um Ma’moun talks about her home like an absent family member.
“How can I describe my homeland?” she said. “Your country is like a mother … Can you ever have the same feeling for another country? It is love, feelings, everything. How can I even describe it?”
A widowed mother of two from the north Aleppo countryside, Um Ma’moun lives in Reyhaniyeh, a refugee camp situated in the rolling foothills of north Lebanon’s Akkar province. When Mada Masr met Um Ma’moun at the end of last year, Reyhaniyeh camp had just been saved last-minute following an eviction order issued by Lebanese military intelligence on November 10.
“We rebuilt ourselves through the community of the camp,” Um Ma’moun says, explaining how important it was that they’d not been forced to leave. “We fled destruction in Syria … and don’t have the strength to be displaced again. This, within the borders of this camp, is my new homeland.”
Refugee camps are never meant to be permanent. Um Ma’moun plans to go back to Syria — but when the time is right.