Sana Mahmoud Sersawi

Above: Sana sits in her home, her eldest son in the foreground. Photograph by Philip Reynaers.

We lived in the Said area of Sabra, and when the shelling started we sought refuge at my parents’ house in Shatila. This happened on Wednesday. At about midnight, some women who came from the western quarter said that killings were taking place. We escaped once again, towards the center of the camp. Then, when daybreak came, we hid ourselves in the shelter of the rest home. I was pregnant at the time, and I had two daughters who were still taking milk. We stayed in the rest home for two days, until Saturday. We didn’t have any milk left. My husband went out to get some for the girls. That night was so long, and the Israelis were firing flares to illuminate the sky. This is how my husband went to Sabra. The Israelis had come as far as the Gaza hospital. After that, I went out to look for my husband, and my sister went to look for her husband. We arrived at the entrance to Shatila. There, they had put the men on one side and the women on the other . I started looking among all the men. I saw him, and I said to him, “[y]ou know, these are Phalangists.” He replied, “[w]hat happened at Tel al Zaater is going to happen to us.” The armed men ordered us to walk in front, and the men behind. We walked like this until we got to the communal grave. There, the bulldozer started digging. Among us was a man who was wearing a white nurse’s shirt; they called him and filled him with bullets in front of everyone. The women started screaming. The Israelis posted in front of the Kuwaiti embassy and in front of the Rihab station requested through loudspeakers that we be handed over to them.

That’s how we found ourselves in their hands. They took us to the Sports Centre, and the men were supposed to walk behind us. But they took the men’s shirts off and started blindfolding them. At the Sports Centre, the Israelis submitted the young people to an interrogation, and the Phalangists delivered 200 people to them. And that’s how neither my husband nor my sister’s husband ever came back.

Mrs Sersawi lost her 30-year-old husband and her brother-in-law.

The above text is an extract from the Complaint lodged in Belgium against Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Amos Yaron and other Israelis and Lebanese responsible for the massacre. The full text of the Complaint can be found in the section of this website titled The Case Against The Accused.

[The Sabra & Shatila Massacres]