Ali Fares

My name is Ali. I come from the village of Shhour, nearby Tyr. It is a region I am really fond of. The afternoons by the rivers with my family, the fishing trips with my friends... Nothing in this world would have ever made me want to leave this place. But I had fallen in love with a girl that happened to live in Beirut. I had met her once on a weekend, while she was visiting my village to check up on her grandparents. Whenever I had the chance, I would go spend my weekend in Beirut and stay at my friend Hassan’s place so I could see her. Hassan was my childhood friend. He had left both our school and our village to go live and work in Beirut.

On August 22nd 1983, as the two of us were headed to meet the girl I wanted to be my wife, we got kidnapped. My sister Mariam – whom I had promised to join in picking almonds from my father’s tree the next day – never saw me again.

My relatives knocked on every possible door. The only answer they would get was this horrid one: “They count the detainees in prison like they count their sheep and if they ever notice that one of them is missing, they go mad. So perhaps, if you have someone replace him there, you could set him free.” To them we were nothing but numbers, change, chess pawns on their way to a prospective “victory”.

My name is Ali Fares, my friend’s name is Hassan Zein. Do not let our stories end here.