Yarmouk is a Palestinian refugee camp on the outskirts of Damascus, the Syrian capital. Camp is a misleading description, the small town had tall buildings constructed over generation of exile. Since 2012 it has been under seige from the regime and has now been taken over by Daesh.
Palestinian refugees are being starved, bombed and gunned down like animals. “If you want to feed your children, you need to take your funeral shroud with you,” one told Israeli news website Ynet. “There are snipers on every street, you are not safe anywhere.” This isn’t happening, however, in southern Lebanon, or even Gaza. And these particular Palestinians aren’t being killed or maimed by Israeli bombs and bullets. This is Yarmouk, a refugee camp on the edge of Damascus, just a few miles from the palace of Bashar al-Assad. Since 1 April, the camp has been overrun by Islamic State militants, who have begun a reign of terror: detentions, shootings, beheadings and the rest. Hundreds of refugees are believed to have been killed in what Ban Ki-moon has called the “deepest circle of hell”.
But this isn’t just about the depravity of Isis. The Palestinians of Yarmouk have been bombarded and besieged by Assad’s security forces since 2012. Water and electricity were cut off long ago, and of the 160,000 Palestinian refugees who once lived in the camp only 18,000 now remain. The Syrian regime has, according to Amnesty International, been “committing war crimes by using starvation of civilians as a weapon”, forcing residents to “resort to eating cats and dogs”. Even as the throat-slitters took control, Assad’s pilots were continuing to drop barrel bombs on the refugees. “The sky of Yarmouk has barrel bombs instead of stars,” said Abdallah al-Khateeb, a political activist living inside the camp.
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To get some idea of the conditions they have been living under, "turn off your electricity, water, heating, eat once a day and live in the dark" one resident is quoted on a UN web site. That one meal will be 400 calories, for a year. Through that horror, there had been two magnificient, defiant voices, Ayham al-Ahmad and his piano. Sometimes Ayham sang.
Sometimes he sang accompanied by children
and sometimes his piano was the only cry of defiance.
One is now silent. In April, when Daesh took over the town, Ayham decided he must leave as he could no longer play. He tried to take his piano out with him. He was stopped by religious fanatics who considered musical instruments "haram" and his piano was burned.
Since then, Ayham has been traveling, through Syria and Turkey to the coastal town of Izmir, with a BBC correspondent keeping in contact and helping film the journey. In Izmir Ayham met his uncle and together they hurried to try to get a boat to the nearby Greek island of Lesvos.
"On the way to Turkey, I was caught in a sandstorm. The weather is getting windier and colder and the waves are higher. I've seen people shivering inside their tents in Europe.
"Although I'm so tired, I want to cross as soon as possible, I might not drown, but I might die of cold in Europe.
Ayham has now made the perilous journey over the short but deadly stretch of water.
"I am now out of danger, the danger of drowning, and hopefully I'll be able to reach somewhere safe where I can bring my family over because anywhere would be even more beautiful with Ahmad, Kinan and their mother. Hopefully, I'll get to Germany and I'll be reunited with my children and wife."
Ayham is now among those walking to central Europe. He is singing again.