George Chamoun

My name is George. I was a young soldier in the army from the Sareen village, in Bekaa. I used to look forward to my leave days, those days when I would go back home and spend time with my brother and hunting partner Joseph. It was on one of those leave days, during the month of October 1975, when I got kidnapped. I was on my way back to my village, with two of my colleagues from the army, when we were stopped at a checkpoint in Chtoura.

My family knew nothing about my fate for years to come. But in 1979, three Lebanese men who had just been released, informed my family that we had been detained together in the Mazze prison in Syria. After a little while, another person came and confirmed my confinement in this prison. This person presented them with a detailed description of me that my family could not but believe him. After that، my mother rushed to that prison only to find out that I had been transferred to the hospital. At the hospital, the nurses recognized me from a photo my mother had shown them. They confirmed that I was taken to that hospital but also explained that I was no longer there. 

This is the story that my mother would repeat dozens of times, always with the same intensity of emotions. She had hoped that these few journalists and NGOs who had shown genuine interest in my story، would somehow manage to make my story heard. She had also hoped that I would not remain one of the 600 cases that disappeared in Syria.

Today, she is no longer with us. it is my brother Joseph who continues to spread my story, to hold onto my memory and to keep the hope that one day my fate will be unveiled.

My name is George Chamoun. My story does not end here.