Fawzia from Houla, Syria, in Reyhanli, Turkey, March, 2013
Artist
Gloriann Liu
(American, 1953 - 2025)
DatePhoto date: 2013; Print date: 2016
Made/manufacturedTurkey
Made/manufacturedSyria
MediumDigital C-print
DimensionsImage: 19 × 29 in. (48.3 × 73.7 cm)
Frame: 30 × 36 in. (76.2 × 91.4 cm)
ClassificationsPhotographs
Credit LineGift of Gloriann Liu
Object number2018.20.3
DescriptionOn May 25, 2012, the village of Houla was surrounded by soldiers from President Bashar al-Assad's regime. Fawzia was home with twenty-five members of her family when they heard a knock on the door. It was their neighbors, who were from the Alawite sect, the same as President Assad. Although Fawzia and her extended family are all Sunnis, their neighbors had always been friendly. Not this time. After a rampage of killings, during which Fawzia and one of her daughters, Hiba, played dead among the corpses, members of the Free Syrian Army arrived. They took one hundred and ten survivors, including Fawzia and Hiba, to safety. The death toll was fifty-three children, forty-nine women, and six men. All of the animals were also killed, and several of the children were missing. Perhaps the greatest tragedy of the conflict is what is happening psychologically to the children, many of them show signs of mental breakdown. As there is no mental-health care available in the camp clinics, these experiences will affect this generation of children for the rest of their lives.
