Reports | 25 05 2020
This year, Hassan failed to repeat what he had been able to do for the past two years at the Qanawat Division of recruitment. He was apprehended in person by Military Police a few days ago, while trying to offer a bribe of one million two hundred thousand Syrian pounds [circa 3,500 US Dollars]. This was in return to obtain a deferment certificate on the basis of being a student for the third consecutive year—despite the fact that he had actually graduated three years ago .
Hassan ran out of options three years ago: All possible deferments based on his student status; his passport deferment; even his administrative deferment; had been exhausted. This left him with no option but bribery—an option whose cost rose from year to year. This was the only way to attempt an escape from military service—or death, as Hassan calls it.
The 27 year-old man resorted to the go-to man in the Division—a warrant officer in direct contact with the Division head. The latter asked for the amount of half a million Syrian pounds [circa 1,400 US Dollars] for one year’s deferment; with double the amount for the following year. Hassan consumed his every waking moment, days and night, to collect this amount.
This did not work out for a third year, however. A decision was issued, whereby all heads of recruitment Divisions in Damascus were changed—something that Hassan learned only very late. While they were handcuffing him, he told them that he wished to talk to the Head of the Division; to which the MP replied “ Your ‘man’ is now in prison; we are collecting all his ‘clients’.”
24 hours later, Hassan went incommunicado. The last news that reached his family were that he was enrolled in a month-long boot camp, in which he will be trained in the use of weapons; after which he was to be posted on one of the multiple battlefronts.
What Hassan is not unique to what the rest of young Damascene men do. They also attempt to flee, to escape certain death on one of the lines of fire. They all resort to desperate last-ditch methods—before throwing themselves into sea boats or the waves of death.
Many of Hassan’s peers and friends who remain in the country, do so for one reason or another—family, spouse, children, business, or jobs. They leave travel as the ultimate and last option. Yet to many people, it has become the only choice.