Ahmed Al-Hazroumah, known as Abu Samer, was in Turkey when the chemical massacre occurred in Eastern Ghouta on the night of August 21, 2013. He said, ‘I spoke to my wife that night and told her I would return soon.’ I couldn’t sleep. Around three in the morning, a friend called me, telling me about a chemical attack on areas like Zamalka, Ain Tarma, and Eastern Ghouta. He asked about my family. I couldn’t find out anything about them. I tried to reach them by every means but didn’t manage to. Ahmed continued to tell what happened to him on that night, saying, “I opened pages of the coordination groups on Facebook, and the first video that appeared to me was about a man carrying my daughter, Jana, saying, ‘She is a victim of the chemical attack!’ I couldn’t comprehend it; my mind refused to accept that this was my daughter.” I continued watching the videos coming from Ghouta, I saw my brother lying among a group of corpses and my father as well. I screamed, waking the rest of the young men in the house. It was a difficult night… And at six in the morning, I received news that my entire family had died in the chemical attack. No one survived.” In the morning, I learned that I still had a brother alive, he brought me to life, but in the end, I lost my mother, father, brothers and sisters, wife, daughters, and many others from the extended family including uncles, aunts, and cousins. Abu Samer refused to surrender and returned to Ghouta after a month to continue the revolution. Today, he is one of the members of the Association of Victims of Chemical Weapons, seeking justice for his family and every victim killed by Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
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