Survivors of Syria's Hama massacre (1982) watch and hope

[UndertheOcean]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/07/us-syria-hama-idUSTRE7665R620110707


~snip~

Three decades after Syrian troops ruthlessly crushed an uprising in Hama, Umm Yasseen is still haunted by the memory of her teenage son being shot dead on her doorstep.

"I started screaming and the Alawite officer who grabbed me said 'Your son is a criminal. He killed himself.' I can never forget his face ever, ever, ever," she said.

The 62-year-old bitterly recalls the February when President Bashar al-Assad's father, Hafez al-Assad, sent troops loyal to his Alawite minority sect to crush an Islamist uprising in Hama.

"I knew they killed my son after I heard the gunshots," said Noor al-Asfar, who was then 32, of the carnage that may have killed up to 30,000 civilians. Many parts of the old city were reduced to rubble, including Asfar's Juzdan neighborhood.