Tunisian families despair over loved ones in Syria

TUNIS - A thin fist pounds the desk in front of Boujemaa Ayari, as he beats out his frustration and anger to the 30 or so other struggling family members assembled in the small, hot room.

“We are poor. We’re sick of it and no one is helping us. I want to go on television. I want to tell the world what it’s like. These people, in their fancy suits, they don’t represent me.”

Three years ago, Ayari’s son Zied left his home in the Tunisian governate of Siliana to go to Syria.

Along with 44 other sons of the families assembled on Sunday at the National Syndicate of Journalists conference in Tunis, Zied remains in Syria, languishing in a government jail. None of the 45 has been accused of committing any crime in Syria, only of travelling there with intentions at odds with those of the government.

For years, following the cessation of diplomatic relations between Syria and Tunisia in 2012, the detainees' fate has been in flux since the Damascus government has sought to shift Tunisian foreign policy in its favour. However, their fate remains no clearer despite the restoration of relations between the two countries in April 2015.

None of the families at this conference tell of sons who left to fight with any of the militant groups engaged in Syria or Iraq. All speak of good sons and brothers who were kidnapped or brainwashed while away in Libya or Turkey. Few can accept the reality of what has happened to them and their families.

Monia Saksli and Jemila Benkaeth, both from the Tunisian city of Bizerte, have typical stories of how their sons left to fight. They tell of how their sons Souhail and Mohamed left together to assist in the humanitarian efforts along the Libyan border in 2011.

On 20 March, Souhail called his mother, ostensibly from the Libyan border, to say that they had arrived. Three days later, they were listed on Tunisian television as terrorists active within Syria. Both are now held with the others in Syria. Neither has been able to visit their sons, but both have heard the stories of lice infestations and malnutrition endemic within Syrian prisons.

Mehrez Ben Achour made the journey to Syria. His son has been held there since 2012. “I went to Syria. I saw Sami in the prison, but they only gave us a minute together and all he could do was cry. They’re only allowed to eat once a day and when I touched him, his skin was cold. They don’t let them wash.”

The families of the 45 - like the families of many of the 4,000 or so young Tunisians reported to be engaged within Syria’s vicious civil war - find support through the voluntary organisation, the Rescue Association for Tunisians Trapped Abroad (RATTA).

It’s their meeting that has brought the families to the National Syndicate of Journalists on Sunday. RATTA’s own president, Mohamed Iqbel Ben Rejeb, is painfully familiar with the torment the families are experiencing. His brother, Hamza, left Tunisia to fight for Jabhat al-Nusra in 2013.

“It was very hard, after he’d been radicalised, but we were able to get him home through our own efforts and those of others. But I used this experience. It helps me help mothers worrying about their child. It gives me an authority where there’s an absence of authority… All of this gave me the courage and the energy to move forward. To make this association deliver on its commitment: We must combat this phenomenon; the virus that is Daesh.”

RATTA serves as both media platform, support group and lobby for the families left behind in Tunisia. Moreover, with perceived antagonism towards expressing sympathy with family members embroiled in external conflicts, the families’ need for support is growing ever more acute.

“They are sick. They are depressed. They’ve had enough. Everyone is opposed to them,” Ben Rejeb told MEE.

“As far as society is concerned, everyone in Syria is a terrorist. Even those who were dragged there against their will; everyone is a terrorist. And society utterly rejects the idea of them coming back, of these sons, these criminals, coming home… People look at them, the families, they say, you are the parents of a terrorist. This follows them everywhere they go.”

To the families affected, RATTA’s message is that those returning from Syria should receive rehabilitation rather than retribution.

RATTA’s membership extends not simply to those who yearn for the return of the families’ loved ones, but also to those who both mourn, and dispute, the loss of the dead. Interviewed earlier, both Latifa Gasma and Nazila Jbelli have lost family to the carnage in Syria and Iraq. Latifa recalls her final contact with her brother.

“Slim called on April 1 [2014]. That was the last time any of us spoke to him. We received a call the same evening from a Syrian. He said Slim had been killed by a tank that day,” Latifa told MEE.

Slim had originally joined ISIS, but escaped in mid-March only to be taken prisoner by Jabhat al-Nusra. He spoke to his sister via Skype.

“He was crying. He said they were going to exchange him for another prisoner with Daesh (the Arabic term for IS). He didn’t want to go. He was pleading with them.” Slim managed to convince his captors to retain him, later agreeing to fight for them. Slim lasted one day. Eventually, the image of Slim’s body, the one Latifa carries, appeared on Facebook, showing a bullet hole in her brother’s head. It is a sign of the family’s desperation that they have chosen to interpret this apparently final image as a symbol of hope.

“They said a tank had killed him, but if you look here, he’s been shot. If they’re confused about that, maybe he’s not even dead. Maybe he’s been wounded. We need to know.”

Nazila’s son, Mohamed Jbeli, left two years ago. “He called me on October 24, 2014. He said they were taking his mobile phone as soon as the call was over.” Nazila said, brandishing the phone bill as proof of her account. “That evening, someone else called. They said Mohamed had been martyred. They never said how. We still don’t know. I checked all the pictures on Facebook, but he wasn’t there. He’s alive. I can feel it. I know he’s alive.”

However, despite Nazila’s optimism, the uncertainty of Mohamed’s fate is slowly destroying her family. “We are suffering… I spent 15 nights in hospital because of this. Once, I went out and bought a can of petrol. I intended to just pour it over myself and burn. We’ll never recover from this. Our lives are over.”

RATTA hopes that the 45 Tunisians currently held within Syria will be returned later this year. However, for the families of countless numbers of young Tunisians who left to fight in a distant war, no end is yet in sight.