Sunday, August 13, 2006

Rest in peace, Um Fuad.

Last year, while visiting Yassine’s family in Baalbeck, I met Um Fuad.

Um Faoud was married the year of the Nakba. Then a young girl, in the chaos and attacks on her village, Yajur of Akka, she was separated from her husband. She fled to Jordan, her husband to Lebanon. And for two years they lived apart.

“People would see me hanging laundry in the refugee camp there and come ask for my hand, they didn’t realize I was already married, and those who did thought I had given up hope” she told me.

Eventually, two years later, he came for her, making his way across the border from Lebanon into Palestine, “infiltrating”, since he was not allowed back to his village as a refuge, and from there to Jordan, where he asked around until he found her. She had taken him for dead or at least having abandoned her. Together, they snuck back to Lebanon, where their families were.

34 years later, she was widowed. Abu Fuad and two of their sons were killed by an Israeli air strike against Baalbeck in 1984.

And now, 58 years later, this second invasion had taken her. She sought refuge in Syria after Baalbeck was targeted a couple of weeks ago, living with hundreds of other Palestinian refugees in a public school.

Um Faoud died today, away from all her remaining sons in Lebanon, a twice-over refugee, unable to return, or be buried, in her home in Yajur.

Another story, another statistic, another 'inconvenient' refugee. Um Fuad, dead at 72.

May she rest in the peace she never found in her life.

5 Comments:

Blogger Arab Lady said...

Reading blogs that tell about others sufferings is more heartbreaking than watching TV news….i guess her soul is happy seeing us from the skies feeling sorry for what the man did to humanity…….

I ask Allah to rest the souls of those who moved next to him and those who look forward to leaving the hell called the “Earth” ………

Layla...Stay safe

11:22 PM  
Blogger White Wings said...

May God rest her soul and unite her with her loved ones
The world needs to know about these stories, thank you

12:06 AM  
Blogger Fatima said...

RahimahaAllah.

6:58 PM  
Blogger Moses said...

You can listen to an interview with Um Yousef broadcast yesterday on Flashpoints, on the web at http://www.flashpoints.net.


The podcast is here.

6:50 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

SubhanAllah, inaillahi wa ila Allahi rajeeun.

A love story. How sadly beautiful

9:47 PM  

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