The Guardian
When Enana al-Assaf was bombed during an exam, she made herself carry on writing. Now doing a PhD in the UK, she worries every day about her family in Syria
Enana al-Assaf with her husband at the University of East Anglia. Photograph: David Kirkham/Fisheye Images
Enana al-Assaf was just five minutes into a pharmacy exam at AleppoUniversity when a bomb exploded next door. The then 22-year-old student says she’d heard the deafening noise of a military plane before the bomb hit. Then the building shook, glass smashed down on top of her, and screams and shouts erupted from the floors above.
As she sat frozen in shock and shaking, the invigilator gave her a choice: she could make her way to safety and repeat the exam in the summer, or stay there amid the chaos and finish it.
“What are you going to do?” Assaf asks. “Education was number one in my life. I wasn’t going to stop just because it’s dangerous.” So she, along with most of her classmates, stayed and completed the exam. As they worked, a second bomb exploded outside. And when they left hours later, they passed blood and ambulances on their way home.
Now 26, and living in the relatively peaceful city of Norwich, Assaf says she wants to help Syrians missing out on their studies due to the conflict.
She herself has been offered a scholarship to study a PhD in cancer research at the University of East Anglia (UEA) and says the opportunity has changed her life. “We have so many smart people in Syria who can’t continue their studies,” she says. “They really want to finish their degrees, but can’t.”
Universities are struggling to operate amid the war. Where they can, students try to complete their degrees but for most it’s not easy. Assaf lived close to an air force intelligence building, a target for bombs and snipers. “You get used to seeing blood on the floor,” she says. “And you just say: ‘thank God I wasn’t there five minutes ago, otherwise I would have been hit.’”
The rubble of a damaged university building caused by an explosion in Aleppo. Photograph: AP
Assaf had to move in with her aunt in western Aleppo after she came home from university one day to find a shell had landed in her living room, destroying her whole house. Her aunt lived next to a hospital, and Assaf recalls seeing dogs crawling over bodies in the bins outside.
University was no safer. Assaf would run to the basement every time there was a threat of danger and many of her friends were killed. “Half my friends were detained, some left the country, and some of them were shot dead in their house.”
There was no electricity, water or heating at the university. “You don’t have anything in the lab,” she says. “And we ended up being taught by unqualified teachers, who just had a bachelor’s degree but were taking the position of university doctors.”
I used to wake up every night having flashbacks
Enana AlAssaf
Despite this, Assaf wasn’t able to transfer to a university outside Syria. “I tried every option. I tried to go to Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, but they wouldn’t take my degree,” she says. “It’s also very expensive.”
The Institute of International Education has called on universities to do more to help Syrian students access education abroad. Although some universities, including UEA, now offer scholarships, Syrian students still often face language, visa and funding challenges.
Assaf was lucky enough to get support, gaining a scholarship from the Asfari foundation in 2014 to study for a masters in molecular medicine at UEA. But the problems didn’t stop when she arrived at her new university.
AlAssaf says she was depressed and had to seek counselling. “I wasn’t psychologically stable because I had been in a war zone and then suddenly I’m in a very nice place,” she says. “I used to wake up every night having flashbacks and feeling like I was back in Syria.”
And she felt disconnected from other students. “There’s a big gap between what’s going on there and here. Sometimes I’d tell people I came from Syria and they wouldn’t understand,” she says. Her marks suffered. “I’d never written an essay in my life, and I didn’t know how to reference or do simple things,” she says. Plus, she struggled with lectures in English.
Enana al-Assaf now lives with her husband in the relative calm of Norwich. Photograph: David Kirkham/Fisheye Images
But despite her initial struggles, she completed her master’s, and last month UEA offered her a scholarship to do a PhD in cancer research. Assaf says it’s “the best thing that has ever happened” to her and plans to work hard to find affordable cancer treatments for displaced people. “I called my family in Aleppo and my mum cried,” she says. “Even though she’s under so much stress and fear, she was always praying that I would fulfil her dream and do my PhD.”
Assaf has been joined by her husband, a fellow pharmacist whom she married in front of a large crowd of well-wishers in Syria after graduating. “People had had enough of the sadness, and wanted to celebrate,” she says.
But her heart is always with family back home. “The first thing I do when I wake up is check the news,” she says. “Then I check when my mum and sister were last online. If it was yesterday, I have to call and check they’re OK. Days pass when I’m in constant worry. I think every Syrian has this worry in their heart.”
And she wants to do what she can to help other Syrian students. “I just really want to emphasise that I hope there’s more support for refugees outside. I was lucky to get a scholarship to continue, but there are other students [still] there,” she says. “And if you give them education, they are going to contribute to rebuilding the country.”