An Alawite woman who returned home from captivity gives her testimony in western Syria. (Credit: Amélie Zaccour/L'Orient Today)
She looks as if she hasn’t seen the sun for months. With tangled hair, Lara*, 31, greets us in a faint voice. Her movements are limited, mechanical. Sheltered by friends 250 kilometers from home, she tells her story without flinching. "I want justice," she says simply.It was a winter morning. Living near Damascus, she had been promised a job interview at a clothing store. A man came to pick her up on a motorcycle at the bottom of her building. Lara, unsuspecting, got on. But the journey, supposed to last ten minutes, dragged on, the driver going way too fast. "He said we were making a detour to see the store owner, but my anxiety was growing," she recalls. Arriving at an industrial area, the motorcyclist stopped in front of a building. Then, suddenly, he grabbed Lara by her hair, dragged her inside, smashing her head...
She looks as if she hasn’t seen the sun for months. With tangled hair, Lara*, 31, greets us in a faint voice. Her movements are limited, mechanical. Sheltered by friends 250 kilometers from home, she tells her story without flinching. "I want justice," she says simply.It was a winter morning. Living near Damascus, she had been promised a job interview at a clothing store. A man came to pick her up on a motorcycle at the bottom of her building. Lara, unsuspecting, got on. But the journey, supposed to last ten minutes, dragged on, the driver going way too fast. "He said we were making a detour to see the store owner, but my anxiety was growing," she recalls. Arriving at an industrial area, the motorcyclist stopped in front of a building. Then, suddenly, he grabbed Lara by her hair, dragged her inside, smashing her...