Hanna Makhlouf

My name is Hanna. I went missing 37 years ago. On that day I was going from my area of residence in Dbayeh to my village in Bkaakefra, to join my wife and 6 children who were spending their last days of summer there. While crossing the village of Amioun, I was stopped at a checkpoint by militia men. After being interrogated, they asked me to step out of my car, a “Simca”, that I had just recently bought; and told me to keep walking and not to come back again.

As I reached Bkaakefra, the story of what I had encountered at the checkpoint started spreading around the village. The residents of my village gathered at my father’s house, who was the mayor of the village at the time. After lengthy discussions, we decided to contact some people that my father knew from Amioun and head to the checkpoint with them in an attempt to negotiate my car back. We could have never imagined that this would cause the disappearance of both my father and I.

A while after our disappearance, a man who was detained with me and my father went to visit my family. He explained to my wife that my father was begging the people torturing us not to hit me as I had a family to take care of. He was asking them to torture him instead. According to this man, my father had died shortly after that. My family did not know if I had the same fate or if I was taken to a detention center in Syria.

“Your father disappeared, I don’t know if he’s ever coming back”. How could anyone explain this to small children? My son Georges, who was 7 at the time, remembers that in our village he was named “the son of the disappeared”. He did not quite understand the meaning of the word “disappeared”. But he noticed that this new nickname led the people around him to treat him more gently and attentively. He had concluded that the word “disappeared” was a personality trait that indicates an achievement done by his father and that it was the reason why people were treating him with much respect. The reality will be very painful when he grows up and asks: “Where is my father?”

My name is Hanna Makhlouf, my father’s name is Wadih. Do not let our story end here.