“The son who buried his parents in his backyard has died!”
It is a phrase which has circulated widely among residents of Bezina, a town in the Damascus countryside, nourishing a story people exchange every time they pass within sight of two graves which have stood for more than 30 years in one of the town’s alleyways, and which fall directly on the frontline between regime forces and opposition fighters in Damascus’ Eastern Ghouta.
“These graves are not a place of pilgrimage, they are not the graves of saints – they are the graves of two parents, buried by their son in their house’s courtyard, so that he could be close to them,” says Abu Ahmed, his eyes gleaming as he recalls whispers from the past – a past characterized, according to Abu Ahmed, by love, loyalty and fidelity. “Abdu was not crazy like some people thought. He was a normal person like everyone else
