Assef and Hamida Salloom
Assef and Hamida Salloom, 40 and 35, with Adam, 2, Lublin, Poland:
Hamida was just three months old when martial law was introduced in Poland in 1981. Her Polish mother fled from martial law to Syria with her and her Syrian husband who was studying in Poland. The family stayed there, her mother worked as a paediatrician and Hamida grew up with her sisters in Latakia. It was a very liberal city and there is no problem when she fell in love with the boy next door. The families didn't even have a problem with the marriage between Catholic Hamida and Alawite Assef. »In my family, we had a lot of friends who were Christian. We felt very European. It was no problem at all,« Assef says, describing life in Latakia. He studied English literature at university; Hamida studied economics. And then, in 2011, the war began. In 2013, the year their son Adam was born, the war escalated. The suburbs of Latakia become occupied by Islamists, shooting missiles at the »abhorrent«, moderate city. »We could hear the explosions and at night we could see them, too,« Assef tells me. By this time, he was working as a university lecturer. »I lost 50 pupils in that time. I counted them. They were beheaded, killed, murdered, kidnapped. I remember each and every one of them.« And then the children on the streets started playing war. And the abductions. »Children were being abducted on a daily basis. Held at ransom and released in exchange for money. Or not. And then the head would be sent to their families. They could get the rest of the body back in exchange for money.« Assef and Hamida decided to flee. Their son should not grow up in those conditions. With just one suitcase, they took a taxi to Beirut in Lebanon on 6 June 2013. From there they fled to Hamida's home country – Poland. Their son, Adam, was just three months old – the same age Hamida was when her parents fled martial law from Poland to Syria.