The Neighbourhood Is No Longer Safe

A relative named Hassan, a middle-aged man, lives in a relatively quiet village. He owns a large house built in an old Roman stone style, overlooking the edges of the town as if it were a fixed part of the landscape. He works in trade and agriculture, which has provided him with financial stability that enabled him to play a well-known social role in his surroundings: receiving people, mediating disputes, and contributing to local reconciliations.
Over time, his house became a destination for those seeking solutions or calming tensions in conflicts.

Hassan tended to remain neutral in everything around him, avoiding involvement in any alignments, believing that staying outside public tensions was the safest form of personal stability. For him, maintaining normal daily life was more important than engaging in complications that did not directly concern him.

One evening, he began hearing unusual movements around the village and intermittent sounds suggesting escalating security unrest. It later became clear that tensions had begun between security forces and local armed groups. At that moment, Hassan did not treat the situation as a direct threat and remained attached to the idea that what was happening lay outside his personal scope.

By the next morning, partial displacement from the village had begun, with some residents leaving quickly. However, Hassan remained in his home, hesitating between leaving and staying, and assessing the situation from the perspective of potential losses rather than immediate risks. He felt that many people were still in their homes, and that leaving might mean an irreversible loss.

One day, he went up to the roof of a neighbour’s house, where a clearer and more intense picture of the situation emerged: military vehicles spread along the main road, and moving lights reflecting a wide security presence. For him, this moment marked a significant shift in the nature of the situation, even if its direction was still unclear.

The following day, security forces entered the village and began deploying inside its neighbourhoods. During one of the raids, Hassan was asked about his religious identity. He answered in a way he thought would avoid any direct problem, and then was asked whether he had weapons in his house, which he denied. After a brief search, he was not harmed, and the patrol continued on its way.

In the following days, the situation remained tense, with no large-scale clashes inside the village, creating a state of anticipation and uncertainty among the residents. From the outside, the scene appeared relatively stable, but it carried a persistent internal anxiety.

Later, on another morning, Hassan’s house was raided by a local armed group. The members were known in the village, some of them from the same area. They entered the house directly and demanded that he hand over his money and valuables.

Hassan tried to speak to them or calm the situation, but it escalated quickly, and he was shot in the foot during the confrontation, causing him to fall. At the same time, a direct threat was made against his family, which eventually led him to guide them to where the money was kept inside the house.

Afterwards, they left the place, and he and his family were taken out of the house without transport, before relatives intervened to move him outside the village for medical treatment. He required medical care and later surgery, after which his physical condition gradually stabilised following a long recovery period.

However, the experience left a deeper impact than the physical injury. His idea of the home as a safe place changed, and the sense of neutrality he had previously seen as a practical choice turned into an open question about the limits of protection it can provide in moments of collapse.

With time, the issue was no longer only about what happened, but about what the event revealed regarding the fragility of previous assumptions about safety, close relationships, and the individual’s ability to avoid major tensions simply by staying outside them.

In the end, the experience remained in memory as a moment of rupture in the idea of safety itself, rather than a mere isolated incident, where it became clear that social or geographical proximity is not always sufficient to ensure real protection in times of turmoil.