Independent
The story of an elderly Syrian couple displaced by the civil war has touched people all over the world after a video featuring the pair was used in a charity appeal.
Ninety-year-old Ahmed and 75-year-old Khadijah met through their fathers, who were best friends. The pair married when Khadijah was just 11 years old, and have been by each other’s side ever since.
“I love you from here to that village,” Ahmed said, gesturing beyond the camera’s lens. “Only to that village?” Khadijah asked, laughing. “To the furthest village!” her husband replies, before the two laugh and play fight.
“I was a young girl who did not understand what marriage was,” Khadijah said. “I didn’t know him, nor did he know me.”
Despite her youth and the fact the couple were strangers when they married, Ahmed and Khadijah grew to love each other very deeply, both of them said.
They had eight children together and have lived “lovingly”, never arguing or fighting, Ahmed added.
After Syria’s war broke out the pair were forced to leave home for a refugee camp because of plans and bombings which “felt like the end of the world”, and life is now very hard for them.
Conditions in the camp mean residents do not have enough food or water, and some have been driven to desperate measures such as selling organs and even their children.
“Our hearts have become empty from the sadness, poverty and oppression,” Ahmed said.
“I wish we died before this happened to us… now we have no one. Best to leave it with God,” Khadijah added, as both of them fought back tears.
The video was uploaded to charity Spotlight Syria’s Facebook page on Saturday. It is not clear from the interview whether Ahmed and Khadijah are still inside Syria or living in a refugee camp in the region.
The Independent has contacted Al-Fatihah Global, the Birmingham-based charity partnered with Spotlight Syria, for more details.
“I think about death a lot,” Khadijah said. “What can I tell you? I hope that everyone can return home and lead normal lives… I hope my children can come home. Do you think I will see my children again?”
At the time of writing the video has been viewed one million times and shared 25,000 times since it was uploaded two days ago. There has been an outpouring of support for the pair in the comments.
“Such a beautiful couple, even finding time to laugh during such terrible hardships. I pray that Allah grants them the chance to see their children again,” one person wrote.
Syria's complex civil war is now in its seventh year. It has forced 11 million people to flee their homes and left at least 400,000 dead, the UN says.