I am Muhammed Najem.
I am 15 years old.
I was born in Erbin in the countryside of Damascus, the capital of Syria.
I was forced to flee my home in Ghouta in April, after our government forcefully took control of the area.
I live in Idlib now, a place in the north -west where thousands of Syrians are resettling. For how long I do not know.
In 2010 I was a normal child.
I lived in a nice house with my family: my parents, two sisters and three brothers.
My father worked so hard to build our house. He was a carpenter and my mother raised us.
I was a naughty little boy, I remember leaving her hand empty to run in the middle of the street chasing cats., I loved cats. My mother would be terrified watching me run amongst the cars, now she is very afraid for us every second.
I was seven years old on my first day of school, my mother brought me to the front gate, I stood there in my new school uniform crying and pleading with her to take me home.
I cried all day and refused to go to class.
The principal came to tell me that attending school is beautiful., I was crying and I didn't hear a word., The teachers asked my mother to go home and leave me. On the way back to the classroom I hit my teacher so I could catch up with my mother.
By the end of that first day I fell in love with school, it was a beautiful thing. I went back home happy and I awaited the second day of school.
I can no longer go to school, there isn’t one.
My big brother loved animals so much and wanted us to have a pet but my father was hesitant.
My brother bought a lovely fish tank, the fish were very beautiful and my father loved them.
Soon after, my brother came home with a package covered in a blanket.
Later that evening we heard a scary sound coming from his room and I went with my father and brothers to investigate.
My brother was pleading with a small parrot to, “ Shut up, please shut up.”.
My father ordered my brother to take the bird out of the house.
Early the next morning my father was leaving for work, he suddenly heard the sound of a lovely twitter coming from the parrot and was soon in love with the bird, teaching him new words every day and feeding him on those early mornings.
Everyone in the family grew to love the parrot deeply, I remember the first word he squeaked was ,"Allah".
I was so happy then.
When the shelling of my city began, we fled, we couldn’t take anything with us.
My brother was anxious about our parrot.
After 15 days, when the situation calmed down, we asked my uncle to bring us our beloved parrot. He told us he sold the parrot because our house was completely destroyed and there was no way to get any food for the bird.
We were very sad. My brother and I cried.
We loved him with all our hearts, like a member of our family.
Many things we lost in the war.
Things we loved deeply.
The displacement struggle began after our house was destroyed in 2013.
The bombing campaigns were increasing day after day, I witnessed the violent bombing of Eastern Ghouta and began filming videos to convey to the world the devastation and suffering of my people.
The Syrian regime were doing everything to hide the truth, from the bombardment and destruction to homes, to the killing of innocents and besieging people to death.
The Assad regime tormented Ghouta from every direction.
They deprived us of everything.
Everything became so expensive.
However, the worst was yet to come, the violent campaign with the full support of Russia with forbidden weapons that are were sanctioned internationally.
Everything was destroyed.
Everything.
We stayed in the a basement for 30 days without seeing the sun.
The bombing was hysterical.
I lost my uncle during the violent campaign.
He was hit in the cellar.
He bled in the cellar until death.
We had nowhere to take him because of the shelling to the hospital.
They deliberately targeted residential buildings, hospitals, schools, shelters, mosques.
Every day there were more deaths, wounded people wounded were dying because the regime used weapons you can’t recover from, rockets, explosive barrels, cluster bombs, chemical weapons.….
Doctors were doing everything they could. but there was a huge lack of drugs and analgesics.
After all this, they decided to deport us to near the Turkish border.
We emerged from the shelters and saw the enormous destruction to the whole country.
We packed up whatever we had and left Ghouta to Idlib.
After all the suffering, we are left with nothing, the future is not certain.
They destroyed Syria with rockets, barrels and bombs.
I hate the war.
We lost everything.
We lost our childhood because of the war.
How will our memories survive?
By Muhammad Najem
As told to Courtney DeWitt