More than 43,000 people have lost their homes due to severe flooding in Libya. Ramadan and his son Sulli are two of them. A report about a miracle, sadness and deep despair.
Sulli wants to tell his story. The 13-year-old boy with Down syndrome sits on the floor in the semi-darkness of an almost windowless, barren room, only a television flickers in the corner. The Libyan News brings the latest reports from Darna, the disaster area. From Sulli’s home.
Sulli, whose real name is Suleiman, also experienced the flood. That’s why he’s alone with his dad now, he says. And crouches on the doorstep. “Wait for mom,” he says quietly.
The family’s life changed forever
Father Ramadan covers his face with his hands. He stares into space, at some invisible point in the darkness of the room. Actually, he’s somewhere else entirely. It has now been almost two weeks since the family’s life changed forever.
“The weather changed,” Ramadan remembers. “We thought it was a normal storm, but it kept getting worse. It was raining heavily. And then it was like an earthquake hit the house, it banged and everything shook. That was the dam burst. I went upstairs in the house to look from the roof. I told my wife, ‘take a look at Sullli’. He was playing in the living room. Suddenly I heard Sulli screaming. The water rushed into the living room. I ran downstairs and found Sulli half submerged in the water, screaming . Two bodies lay on him, a man and a child, neighbors, they had been washed in. They were dead. Suleiman screamed, ‘Dad, dad, there is water in the house, there is water!'”
Ramadan (left) and Sulli in their new temporary home.
Father can save his son
The father manages to save his disabled son and escapes with him back to the roof. There is no trace of his wife. That night, Ramadan’s life disappears into the floods. Father and son are saved just in time, the house collapses shortly afterwards. “The house no longer exists, there is no house anymore,” says Ramadan. His voice fails.
Then he continues the story. In the next few days, rescue workers find the bodies: Ramadan’s family has been wiped out. The 48-year-old has to identify his three brothers and sister and their families. All nieces, nephews and cousins are dead. The grandmother is still missing: “I have seen the bodies of my siblings, but not my mother. Some say she is in Benghazi, some say she is in Tobruk, I know “Not. I just hope she’s still alive.”
Ramadan had to identify many family members.
Short joy
And Sulli’s mother, Ramadan’s wife? Then a miracle happens, as the neighbors later call it: Because they are homeless, Ramadan looks for a place to stay for himself and his disabled son in the next larger town, about 100 kilometers from Darna. He rents the dark apartment, little more than a shack. He files a missing person report – and finds out from helpers that his wife is alive. Neighbors were able to save her and she is in the hospital. She lives.
But the joy would only be short-lived: Ramadan’s wife has been mentally confused since the disaster. She no longer recognizes her husband. Every day Ramadan goes to her with Sulli and tries to reach her. The only one who can sometimes do that is Sulli, he says: “If I want to talk to her, I have to bring Suleiman with me.”
“I want to go back to Darna”
And what should happen next? Ramadan shrugs his shoulders: “I only have one wish: I want to take my son and my wife when she’s well again and go back to Darna. I have to go back to Darna. Darna was heaven on earth. If you’re from the “When you came down the mountains into the city, you could smell the smell of jasmine. We don’t make the tea with mint, but with blooming flowers. Darna was our pride. All that was washed away overnight.”
Your old worries suddenly seem so small. They had come to terms with the fate that their only child was disabled. The couple had previously lost four children, stillborns and babies who died immediately after birth. “I held them in my arms, gave them a name and then they died,” says the father.
Everything was different with Sulli
Then Sulli came. And although everything was different with a disabled son, he is still alive. That was what counted. That he was alive. Ramadan wipes his eyes for a moment. Then the gaze turns inwards again.
Sulli sits on the doorstep and plays with a balloon, blowing it up and spinning it in front of his eyes. He laughs. “Come on, let’s go into the house,” says Ramadan, taking his son’s hand. Sulli shakes his head. Waiting for mom, he says. And smiles.
Sulli is waiting for his mom.