Raghida

Twenty-six-year-old Syrian refugee and mother of two who loves the beach.

“I’m trying to get back to how I was before we left Syria the first time. It takes time to remember your dreams.”

I’m from Idlib province in northwest Syria. I was 14 years old – it was 2013 – when my family moved to Lebanon because of the war. I’m 26 now, so over all that time, Lebanon became my second country.

I’m back in Syria now, and despite the fact that we suffered in Lebanon for what feels like a lifetime, I’m nostalgic for Lebanon. I’m nostalgic for the houses I lived in – after I got married my husband and I moved around a lot wherever we could find work – and for the last place I lived before returning to Syria; a village in Keserwan. That’s where the ski slopes are. It’s a beautiful place, but it’s very expensive.

Before the war in Lebanon, my husband and I always told ourselves that things will change, things will get better. But once the war began, we felt like we were watching the same painful scenario repeat itself: first in Syria, then in Lebanon. It felt like our own country was at war all over again, and we decided that at least if we went back to Syria our children would be near their grandparents and other family.

As Syrian refugees, we were already displaced when the war started. It’s a difficult experience. We were technically living in a safe place, but there were so many restrictions on Syrians in Lebanon.

In Keserwan, there were all these rules for Syrians: You couldn’t go out after 7pm, and you couldn’t gather in groups. We respected the rules, but we ended up getting punished because other people didn’t. There was a lot of racism.

It was nearly impossible to visit other Syrian friends. We were under constant pressure, always stuck in the house at night, and it started to affect our mental state and every part of our lives. Everyone needs other people in their lives.

There are no schools that will take Syrians where we lived. My son is four and a half years old, and I couldn’t find a pre-school that would register him.

The Lebanese army also conducted raids to round up Syrians. This caused a lot of fear. In about April 2024, my husband and father were arrested and taken to the border with Syria for deportation. They were held for two days and managed to pay smugglers to bring them back to Lebanon. My husband was wanted for military service by the regime of former President Bashar al-Assad: He couldn’t go to Syria.

In the end, we left Lebanon because of a series of things that piled up. It wasn’t just one thing.

When the war started, everything became more expensive. Fear started to spread. A lot of displaced people came to the area where we were. Some locals made money off them, and we ended up suffering because of that as well. When displaced people came, they would rent houses for 500 or 600 dollars a month, while we were paying 100 dollars. Because of the new people, they wanted to raise our rent.

Around the time my husband was arrested, my son got sick. We took him to the hospital, where they gave him a blood transfusion and told us he has a hemolytic disease. But they didn’t tell us that there are certain foods he can’t eat, or medications he can’t take.

He had to be hospitalised again, and at the hospital near us it would cost $800 a night. We are registered as refugees with the UN, but that didn’t entitle us to any support there. There were no affordable hospitals near us – we had to go to Beirut – that was another thing that pushed towards leaving. In our family, it’s just my husband who works. All his salary goes towards rent, the electricity generator, state electricity bills, and internet.

There were no bombings in Keserwan, but we looked around. We saw the war in Lebanon, and the war in Syria, and so many expenses piling up here. We finally thought: “Why not go back to Syria?” At least we wouldn’t have to pay rent and other expenses there, and my son and daughter could go to school.

My husband’s brother kept urging us to come back, and he found what we thought was a legal way to return. I postponed leaving for a while… I was gripped by this feeling of having to leave a country that felt like my own. It’s incredibly hard, especially for me, because I had lived in Lebanon for so long. I got truly attached.

But after my son was discharged the second time, we decided to leave. We sold most of our things, and had packed two suitcases with the things we loved, as well as clothes for me and the kids. I brought some make-up, and a bottle of perfume my husband gave me for Valentine’s Day. It was still in its box.

We sold almost everything in our house for only $300, because we had had enough. It was the hardest year for Syrians. Not just me. Lots of others I knew returned to Syria around then. People had had enough of the situation, the racism, the high cost of living, and their children being unable to go to school. They just couldn’t take it anymore.

The return journey was risky, because we had to go through parts of Lebanon that could be bombed at any moment, and we didn’t know anyone. If something happened, where would we go? We were scared and overcome with mixed emotions. We were going to another country, even if it was our homeland, where we had nothing. We left on 25 November 2024, which turned out to be a few days before the ceasefire in Lebanon.

First, we went to Bourj Hammoud, outside of Beirut, and stayed there for two days. Then we went to Sabra, in Beirut, to wait for the buses. We went north to the Lebanese city of Tripoli, and then to the border. We waited for a long time at the Syria-Lebanon border; we arrived at 9am and didn’t cross until 9 at night. The bus was full of people, and each person had to go to a checkpoint for questioning and various procedures.

Every once in a while, the bus driver gave us dirty looks and asked us for money. We kept having to pay for various things. First for photocopies, then for something else. We drove through checkpoints in regime-controlled territory and then Kurdish territory, and then we got to a checkpoint.

They took us off the bus and made us wait on an empty piece of land where they had piled up some sand, and they told us to stay low. There was someone watching us. They told us: “Stay down, this is a war zone!” We just sat there. I was so terrified, I didn’t know what to do.

We waited until a car finally came and took us away, into rebel-held territory. That’s when I realised that we had been smuggled in. I thought it was all official – the bus company, the arrangements – everything was supposed to be legal. But it turned out they were working with a smuggling network. It cost us $800.

Right after we arrived in rebel territory, the fight to liberate Syria had begun. Idlib was under bombardment from the air. My brother-in-law had picked us up, and we had to switch roads because they were bombed.

Eventually, we got to the village my husband and I are from, near Jisr al-Shughur, in Idlib. We are now living in my mother-in-law’s house. After a few weeks, the smugglers sent us our bags. Things were missing – they stole the perfume. They took the perfume my husband gave me, and left the empty box.

Everyday life in Syria is different, and I still haven’t fully adapted. I’m still figuring things out. But, for now, my husband is looking for a new job and I am continuing my education – I had just completed the ninth grade when we first fled Syria – now I’m studying for a baccalaureate exam.

It’s true that we don’t have a house here, and we have to start over. But at least we can try to build something here, and my children can get an education. In Lebanon, I felt like I was doing nothing.

The racism I endured in Lebanon is something I will never forget. I’ll never be able to forget things that happened to us, the terror we went through, having to go through another war. I used to be an optimistic person, and over time I became hopeless. But I’m trying to get back to how I was before we left Syria the first time. It takes time to remember your dreams.

But there are beautiful things that happened to me in Lebanon too. In every place I lived, I met kind people. My favourite times in Lebanon were at the beach. I only went a few times. I would make a cup of matte, sit by the water, and forget about everything else.

In a lot of ways, I loved living in Lebanon. But the situation for Syrians meant I just couldn’t stay.