A heady scent of mint follows her everywhere in Raqqa where she manages to put down her suitcases, with her children aged 8 and 10, Ahmed and Asma. A former “Woman of Daesh”, she prefers to be called Om Asma – literally “Asma’s mother” to protect her identity. Because, since she left the Al-Hol camp, 200 km from Raqqa, in 2020, this 39-year-old Syrian has had to be content with an itinerant life, made up of forced moves, odd jobs and stares. crooked.
“Al-Hol was a real prison”she says about this place of misery where nearly 42,000 women and children still live, closely or loosely linked to the jihadists of the Islamic State. We couldn’t do anything there, neither leave nor send the children to school.”, continues Om Asma, through the thick black niqab which barely reveals a hard and shifty gaze. “ How many times have we been robbed! Even our tent…” she adds, sitting cross-legged, busy mechanically stripping the leaves from mint branches.
This painstaking work, intended to supply restaurants, barely allows him to survive, in the shadows and sometimes in disgrace. “That’s all I do, day and night, for about 400,000 Syrian pounds. (the equivalent of around thirty euros) per month, with households as wellshe continues. Except for Ramadan, I can’t even go to the mosque. My life was much better under Daesh. At least I had my husband to provide for us” she says, her intimidated daughter at her side.
97% of “husbands” dead or missing
Dead, imprisoned? Om Asma says she has no news of her husband, a Saudi engineer she married in 2014, just after the capture of Raqqa. “He was looking for a wife and I was looking for a husband. His family agreed. Mine much less so.” she says. Of their life during the “self-proclaimed caliphate” of Daesh, she will only mention the security and comfort of her home, without going into further detail. Listening to her, her husband, “who suffered from back pain”, was just working “in administration” of Daesh. The fall of the terrorist group, in October 2017 in this self-proclaimed “capital” of Raqqa, sounded their own.
In the months that followed, Om Asma knew that her husband was incarcerated. But since the major attack carried out in January 2022 by the terrorist group on the Ghwayran prison in Hassakeh, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of members of the Kurdish forces and jihadists, she had no news of him. Like him, 97% of the “husbands” of the women of Al-Hol are considered dead or missing, and 3% are imprisoned. Now it’s a little strange to be able to do what I want, in safety. But I alone bear responsibility for the home” she insists, turning on a weak fan. For $70 a month, she lives these days in an empty apartment, converted into a steam room, on the top floor of a building spared by the war.
“You are Daesh!”
“Every time I come to see Om Asma, I find her in a different place. But as she begins to have relationships, and some owners sometimes give her electricity as a gift,” notes Najah Hamin, from the Oxygen Shabab association, which supports these “wives of Daesh” in their reintegration. “Many of them are stigmatized by society, angry. People talk and despite the niqab, they are quickly spotted thanks to their children. Some passers-by shout at them: “You are Daesh!” » But after a while, and a lot of mediation, things calm down.” assures this 63-year-old former Christian teacher, lighting a cigarette.
Oxygen Shabab has been working since the end of 2020 for the return of the women of Al-Hol, and their journey of “reconciliation”, through workshops, training and assistance with the schooling of children. To date, 900 families, including 4,000 children, have left this camp to reach Raqqa; 243 families still live in this “pearl of the Euphrates”, the others have left for the countryside or other localities in northeastern Syria. “Helping them was initially a solitary endeavor, international NGOs did not want to get involved for fear of ‘supporting terrorists’remembers Abdulhamed Al-Ahmed, general coordinator of the association with multiple missions, helped by the city of Raqqa, Expertise France and the American NGO Mercy Corps. But little by little, they understood the issue and responded. »
Choosing the families eligible to leave Al-Hol was not an easy task. “We prepared lists of names and sheikhs guaranteed that the women in question did not pose security problems”, replies Najah Hamin. Since 2018, six “returns” have taken place to Raqqa. The association protects their true identity in their reintegration journey. “We use codes to designate them, the first letter of the first name and a number”specifies Abdulhamed Al-Ahmed.
The reunion of a teacher and her student
Najah Hamin did not need Om Asma’s real name to recognize her: a coincidence of lives damaged by war, one on the side of Daesh, the other on that of the Christians persecuted by the terrorist group, the two women found each other by chance. “She was my student when I was still teaching”smiles the sixty-year-old, who pleads with her family to mend torn ties.
The challenge also arises from her Saudi in-laws. Like most of Daesh’s ex-wives, Om Asma has no identity documents for herself or her children. In Syria, the mother does not give nationality. However, all she has left from her husband is a driving license. “That was not enough, so Oxygen Shabab contacted her Saudi family to have the children accepted and for her to obtain Saudi papers.”explains Abdulhamed Al-Ahmed.
In this new life with still uncertain contours, Om Asma insists on sending her children to school, even during the summer holidays. “They study at the mosque during the summer and play games. I really wish Asma could go to university.”she adds, her hands in mint. The little girl dreams of becoming ” doctor “.
