When I embarked on my trip to Reyhanli, on the Turkish-Syrian border, I knew that I was going to have some difficult conversations. Every day, before going to the Medical Education Centre to speak to those who fled Syria in search of safety, I tried to mentally prepare myself. I tried to prepare myself for the heart-breaking stories I was about to be exposed to. Thinking about it in hindsight, I realise there was no way I could have genuinely done that. There was nothing I could have done to prepare myself for the laughs of Fatima -  each one piercing my soul with heartbreak.  Her laughs were ones of a carefree child. They were laughs which, had I not seen her sitting there in front of me in her wheelchair, would have convinced me that she had no worries. But that was not the case. There Fatima sat, almost fully paralysed from the waist down. Just eighteen years old, only two years younger than me, but with the troubles of a lifetime. 

In 2016, at the age of fourteen, Fatima’s life was changed in a way that no human, let alone a child, should ever have to endure. She had just finished her classes at school and had decided to go to the school playground with her friends before going home. They were sitting on the benches talking when, before they knew it, cluster bombs started falling down on them. They were children, supposedly protected from being targeted under International Humanitarian Law. Fatima told me how they started to panic, how she and her friends started running around the playground trying to find shelter under the trees. It was useless, however. There was no escaping. The first came down. Then the next. And soon the bombs started raining down on the school, indiscriminately targeting the innocent school children.

Between each stage of her story, Fatima paused to laugh.  At first, I found myself confused. Her story was so heart-breaking that I was unsure how to respond, unsure of which form of expression would worthily reveal the sorrow and outrage that her experience deserves. I knew, however, that laughter was not the right one. So, as she laughed, I found myself torn. 

Fatima’s friends all passed away, their lives snatched away from them and their families in a cowardly act of brutality. Fatima, on the other hand, survived, but her injuries were severe. She had to have her right kidney removed and her spinal cord was damaged, resulting in initial full body paralysis. When I met Fatima, her mobility had slightly improved as a result of years of physiotherapy, but she still cannot walk on her own.

One thing about Fatima that will stay with me forever is her laugh.  As Fatima told me her stories, she was laughing. At first, they seemed carefree, but then they turned into hysterical laughter. I looked at her, wanting to ask her why she was laughing. How could she laugh with all the pain and turmoil she endured? After an internal struggle, I finally decided to ask. The answer that I received humbled me. She told me that if she did not laugh, she would cry. She would cry for her friends who were murdered in front of her. She would cry for her legs that are now limp and almost fully paralysed. She would cry for the childhood she can never reclaim. 

“The day they dropped those bombs they stole every opportunity in my life, every possibility I had of controlling my future.  As long as I have the choice of laughter, I will never let them take it away from me”.

Fatima’s words resonated with me, highlighting that the human rights violations she endured could only shake but not shatter her strength and resilience. In never surrendering her smile, in telling her story to the world, and in laughing her way through it, Fatima can embark on a journey of reclaiming the independence and respect that was not only stolen from her, but from all the other victims of the Syrian Civil War, all the victims since 2011 who were silenced.

Sarah is a third year undergraduate student studying BSc Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the University College London. She has a keen interest in human rights - with a particular interest in Middle Eastern Affairs due to her Syrian origins.

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