Khaled Hosseini tells Yasser’s Story
Photo by UNHCR/B. Sokol/2014.
American novelist Khaled Hosseini meets Yasser and is moved by the atrocities his young children have witnessed.
Yasser worked in a shoe shop in Aleppo. Life was simple, modest but happy. Then war broke out and the bombing became constant. But the family tried to stay as long as they could. They sold every piece of furniture in the house and lived on bread and water, Yasser and his wife often skipping meal so that his children could eat. But eventually a bomb killed many of their neighbours, including children, and they left.
“The children were only 14, 12 and six, and there was nothing they hadn’t seen. I watched the little boy as he giggled and playfully lined up water bottles on the table. At six years, he had already spent half of his life in wartime.”
Text by K. Hosseini for The Independent on Sunday/6th April 2014.
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