Al-Ahmad in Yarmouk
Amid Syria chaos, broken symbol of hope plays final note
Palestinian pianist Ayyam Al-Ahmad spent months keeping up moral in the Yarmouk refugee camp before war finally broke his will and sent him on a life-threatening journey to Europe.
Hundreds of thousands of Syrian's have fled war and hardship over the last few months, looking for safety within Europe's borders. The unprecedented mass migration has left the Middle East more broken than ever as shelled-out structures have been abandoned and once bustling streets are seen as danger zones.
Much of Syria has been left hollow, but tiny rays of light have maintained in the difficult reality of brutal civil war, including Palestinian pianist Ayyam Al-Ahmad, who kept music reverberating amongst the rubble of the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in Damscus for months.
Al-Ahmad in a YouTube video. (youtube)
Al-Ahmad became infamous online after uploading videos of himself playing in the ruins of a war-torn country. But even the notes from Al-Ahmad's piano could not hold back the darkness in Syria forever.
After months of maintaining morale and some semblance of culture in Yarmouk, Al-Ahmad finally broke like all the others and began making his way to Europe.
Al-Ahmad bringing music to Yarmouk.
"On my birthday in April this year, I decided to leave the camp," Al-Ahmad told the BBC. "The hardest times were when I used to hear Ahmad, my son, crying at two in the morning. He was hungry and there was no milk. I had some money but I couldn't buy anything for him with it.
"Those were the hardest times of my life. I never faced anything worse than that," he said.
Lining up for food in Yarmouk last year. (Photo: AP)
Al-Ahmad recounted how the conflict nearly took everything from him - even playing the piano was putting him and his family in danger, but he wasn't willing to let go of his musical instrument even after he'd decided to flee.
"I put the piano on the wagon, covered it with cardboard and tried to leave," he recounted. ""But there was a member of Islamic State at the checkpoint who stopped me and asked: 'Don't you know that the musical instruments are haram (forbidden)?' Then they burnt my piano."
Al-Ahmad spoke to Ynet Saturday evening and said that his journey from Syria began in early August when he paid a smuggler to get him out of the country. From Damascus he reached Homs; from Homs to Hamah; from Hamah to Idlib; and from Idlib to Turkey and the city of Izmir on the coast of the Aegean Sea where he found some respite with an uncle.
Al-Ahmad uploaded this photo to Facebook before boarding a ship for Greece.
In Izmir, Al-Ahmad joined other refugees in boarding a ship for Greece where he said the situation was "very tragic" and refugees didn't have access to food or drinking water. He said however, that the difficulties he faced were not due to any degrading treatment from the governments of Europe.
Now in Belgrade, Al-Ahmad aims to reach Germany like so many others. He hopes his arrival will be the end of his journey and the beginning of his family's who stayed behind in Damascus, waiting for him to find a place to settle.
"Even though I'm in Belgrade and not in the refugee camp, I'll keep singing for it," Al-Ahmad told Ynet. "As far as I'm concerned, nothing has changed. Peace is music and music is preferable to the sounds of gunfire and war.
Hoping to return to Yarmouk
"My message is the same message I promoted in the refugee camp and it will stay with me outside of the camp as well," said Al-Ahmad.
Even after his own personal journey to Europe, Al-Ahmad is still worried for his family in Damascus who he hopes will find a safe route to join him.
"When the extremism leaves the camp and it's safe again, I'll go back," Al-Ahmad said of an uncertain future. "But the best would be going back to Palestine. I want to return to Safed, to Palestine. From Germany I'll go back to Palestine even though it's far.
