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Minassian Family Story

Gaberyel - Profession Turner machinist - english none

Alice - Profession Seamstress - english none

Sako - Son - Profession Turner machinist and university student &jeweler - English:somewhat

Maria - Daughter - Profession University student - English Average

Family story

Since the first anti-government protests broke out in Syria, in March 2011, the country has spiraled into all –out war between the national army and an array of opposition groups. As often happens, however, civilians have paid the highest price.

Now, the conflict continues to intensify, showing no signs of abating, and taking a particular toll on the country’s safety specifically for its citizens.

The most affected people are the welders as their skills are needed by the rebels. In addition the youth, specifically the university students have paid a high price as their universities were being attacked very often and our children were highly impacted.

We had very comfortable life before the conflict. My son and I, we had our own businesses, I worked in steel and machining business. My son was getting harassed in the university and we decided to stop his education as it was not safe for him. As a result, my son joined me in my business of machining.

At first our type of businesses were among successful businesses, after the conflict having your own business became the worst nightmare. The rebels took our kind of businesses as their stop pits. And they were expecting jobs beyond our specialities.

All you see young men armed; they walk into your shop and ask to build something or to weld something which they were using for their dirty jobs. Or they walk into a mechanic shops and order the owner to leave everything and look after their orders. And you cannot ignore or refuse them. Should any shop owner refuse these armed rebels will face the consequences, it is a bullet in the head. And lately they were using the beheading method. For rebels killing was like stepping on an ant. People’s lives were the cheapest commodity in the market.

Most of the rebels used or drove pick-ups. They were stealing pick-ups, trucks if they found in their paths. Also they were following people driving pick-ups, they were cutting in front of the driver and then forcing him out of the car and driving away leaving the driver behind. In some cases, they were even killing the driver.

Sometimes these rebel armed men will walk into the shop and force the owner to go with them to their parking lots to fix or modify the trucks so that they could carry their weapons in the trucks and have guns fixed to the truck itself, they wanted the capacity of a tank gunner on their pick-ups.

There are stories that they walked to the shops and took the owner with them, and then the family never heard of him. Some they killed the captured and throw the body in front of his house.

My daughter was also a university student and she was looking forward to the completion of her studies. However, the conflict in the universities forced her to stop her education. One day she came back horrified as the rebels had attacked the university and she had witnessed two of her classmates laying down in a pool of blood and one had already died.

My daughter was not able to handle such sceneries, nor us a parent wanted her to pay such a huge price for her education. Since that day, my daughter is suffering from nightmares.

After hearing all the news of rebels treating the shop owners , my son and I decided to halt our business following all other enterprises.

We stayed at home with the entire family, thinking that our house is a safe sanctuary. Shortly we found out that our residence is at risk when the civil war began.

Besides the civil war, rebels knew how to follow the shop owners at their residence. The rebels paid a visit and forced them out to go with them. Once they come to your house you have no other choice but to follow their orders.

We wondered whether death was less cruel. However, we did not want to discover the answer for ourselves.

My family and I discussed our situation. It was decided that horror, bombings, kidnapping and killings were no way of life. We decided to leave Syria as soon as possible.

There is much pain to forget. There is much hardship to leave behind. For the ordinary Syrian people the news cannot be told of them and their suffering if it was in Syria or in Turkey. It would be too disturbing for the viewing public.

But we want to leave the pain and terror in Syria – we want to look forward to a much better life. My family and I want to regain our dignity, our lives in a peaceful country such as Canada, where we do have freedom of speech and be able to go to church for a prayer.