Back to Homeland, Lebanese Hostages Narrate Details of Horrific Ordeal

Local Editor

Nine Lebanese hostages were released Saturday after being held for 17 months by the Syrian armed groups. They were abducted in the Azaz district of Aleppo in May 2012 on their way back from religious pilgrimage to Iran.

The freed pilgrims flew from the Turkish city of Istanbul to Beirut Saturday evening, part of a deal that saw the release of two Turkish pilots the same day.
General Security head Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim acted as a negotiator on behalf Lebanon.

The Qatari jet which was carrying the pilgrims and Ibrahim landed in Beirut international airport on Saturday night.

They were received by their families and prominent political officials, who gathered to welcome their return to their homeland.
Talking to reporters upon their arrival in Beirut airport, Ibrahim said negotiations with the "Turkish, Qatari and Syrian sides have yielded the fruitful outcome we are witnessing this day."
As he thanked Qatar "from all our heart," Abbas added "we heartily thank Turkey and President Bashar al-Assad as well, who facilitated this mission."
Answering a question about the negotiations, the Major General said: "There is no doubt that it was difficult."

Earlier, a Qatari plane carrying two Turkish pilots abducted in August in Lebanon took off from Beirut's airport, carrying the freed men home, as part of a swap deal also involving Syrian women prisoners.
One of the freed hostages, Ali Termos, revealed that the kidnappers moved him 13 times during his 17-month ordeal, constantly stringing him along with the lie that freedom was hours away.

"My nerves were wrecked. I counted that we were moved 13 times, maybe more," he said in his living room, hours after his release and return home late Saturday via Turkey.
"They told us we would be freed 100 times. But they were lying, they would move us and then there was no release. It tormented our morale," he added.
Back home in Dahyieh [Beirut's southern suburbs], Ali is surrounded by his wife, his three children and a sea of well-wishers.
They have come in waves to congratulate him on his safe return from Syria, flooding his house all day on Sunday.
The house is decked in yellow balloons and relatives offer coffee and platters of sticky-sweet cakes to express their gratitude for such compassion and Termos' return.
Termos recalled how they were moved to various rebel positions near the Turkish border, including a tent under scorching heat and a room with bare essentials.
The men only had the clothes on their backs which they washed and put out to dry, he said.
"For a while they brought us ready-made food, but the rest of the time they brought us foodstuff and we had to cook. Sometimes we had to cook in a bathroom.
"One of our captors asked me 'What will you say about us after you are released?' I did not answer.

Ali Abbas had harsher words for his captors.
"They are not Sunnis, or Shiites, or Christians or humans either," said the young man who also returned home on Saturday after 17 months in captivity.
Well-wishers have also thronged his family home and his parents are greeting them and offering juice and cake to mark the occasion. Flowers and multi-colored balloons festooned the house.
"You know psychological and moral abuse and undermining people's dignity is worse than physical abuse," he said.
"Our worst fear was fear itself," Abbas added.

"Eleven of the sites they took us to were totally destroyed in bombardment and blasts and many times we thought they would kill us," he added.
Abbas said their fate changed on Thursday when their captors forced them to don bags over their heads and drove them to an unknown destination.
They were taken into a room where a man awaited them, saying "'You are safe inside Turkish territory,'" said Abbas.
"It was a wonderful moment. I cannot describe it, but those words changed everything."

Lebanese officials have said the men were freed on Friday and taken to Turkey the following day before their return to Lebanon.

For his part, another free hostage Jamil Saleh recalled: "The most difficult moments were when they [the kidnappers] closed the doors on us in the room and we were kept in."
"The nine of us had to sleep in a small room. If someone got sick they [the rebels] didn't take him to a physician or get him proper medication," Saleh added.
Beside him sat his mother, his 21 grandchildren and other family members who were busy offering baklava to well-wishers who had flocked to his residence.

"I would ask them: ‘Could you please open the door for me so that I can walk in the sun and reenergize?' but they never allowed this," he said.
Saleh, 65, was the oldest of the nine kidnapped pilgrims. He suffered from heart problems before his abduction.
"I used to tell them, ‘I am sick, I have many problems and need medication.' They used to get me random medicine and say ‘This will make you feel better,'" Saleh said.
Abbas Hammoud, another of the freed hostages, was similarly uninformed about the motivation behind the kidnapping.
"What is the reason? May God forgive those who kidnapped us, but I still don't know why [they did it]," Hammoud said.
While receiving people at his home in Tyre, Hammoud detailed the "very difficult conditions" he suffered during his captivity.

"The shelling was so close to us and we escaped death every time," the man added as his mother placed the Holy Quran over his head.

Abbas Shoaib was tortured. "My brother underwent medical tests today and will head to hospital soon. They hit him with their rifles," his brother added.
Ali Zogheib said that his life and that of his fellow captives had been at risk in the last few weeks, when clashes intensified between the Northern Storm Brigade and the ISIS.
"So many rockets landed near us, but thank God we were not even slightly wounded," he said. "We begged them to move us to a safer place but they did not heed our calls," he said, interrupted regularly by well-wishers at his house in Hay al-Sellom.

He said that the Northern Storm Brigade detonated a bomb just above his head, but he was not wounded. Zogheib, who had undergone open-heart surgery before he was abducted, said that his kidnappers did not treat him when he felt severe chest pains on one occasion.

Source: News agencies, Edited by website team