Fisherwoman broke restrictions in forgotten village

DIJLA AHMAD – ZANA SIDI/ KOBANÊ

On the eastern banks of the Euphrates River in North Syria, the village of Dabaa is one of the small green villages close to the town of Serin to the south. The village's residents are from the tribe of Amiraat, the largest Arab tribe in northern Syria.

Fishing is one of the main careers in the village. Through this profession, the villagers gain their livelihood by selling the fish they hunt to traders who, in turn, take these quantities of fish into cities and towns.

Amsha Mohammed is 50 years old and has been abandoned by her children to neighboring countries. However, she has been working with her husband for more than 33 years in the fishing profession, breaking the restrictions on women and masculine mentality that deprives women of their right to work.

Every day, when the sun sets, Amsha Mohammed, begins to rattle her small boat on the shores of the Euphrates River with her husband, Ahmed Salloum, 63, and start throwing nets at the river aiming to catch the largest amount of fish.

She suffers from joints pain but is forced to help her husband to secure their livelihood after being abandoned by their three young men and a number of girls who married and moved away.

The family has only a motorcycle, which they use to buy their daily needs, along with a small boat that earns their living by it. By talking with them, it turns out that they dream of a better life and that their children receive education.

As the sun rises, the couple rush to the river shore and begin the process of pulling out the 1,000-meter-long net.

After more than an hour of lifting the nets and a prolonged effort, the mother gets a good amount of fish with her husband, but is considered to be a small number in comparison to fishermen who resort to illegal methods of fishing; the explosives and water-powered electricity that destroys the eggs.

This village is like other villages abandoned by the villages that were flooded in the 1990s, after the construction of the Tishrin Dam on the Euphrates River in North Syria, which in turn led to the disappearance of dozens of villages along the river, most of which were historic villages.

H/S

ANHA