She held as tightly as she could to the side of the boat, but as it plunged downward, her fingers slipped open and she slid into the sea, immediately sinking below the surface. Doaa found herself under the plastic rice sacks that the passengers had tied together for shade on the boat. She frantically moved her arms, attempting to reach the surface, only to see that she was trapped along with dozens of other people underneath the sacks. Fighting off panic, Doaa shut her eyes, then opened them again to see the people near her struggling to free themselves from under the heavy plastic. There was no air to breathe and no path to the surface. She remembered the time her cousin had thrown her into the lake and she had breathed in heavy, choking water. This time there was no family to pull her out, nothing but cold salt water and the pressure growing in her chest and behind her eyes as she struggled to catch her breath and choked down more water. Then she saw a glimmer of sunlight and noticed a tear in the plastic. She stretched her hands into the opening, feeling as if they were moving in slow motion, and pulled herself through the small hole and above water. She gasped for air at the surface. Doaa realized that the rice sacks were still attached to the boat, and if she crawled over them, she could reach the stern—the only part that was still floating—and grab on to the edge of the boat. She made her way along the sacks, and when she reached the boat’s edge, she grabbed it so tightly that she couldn’t feel her hands. She caught her breath in huge gulps, then turned to look below her. The people under the plastic had stopped moving.
She heard screaming all around her, muffled only by the sound of the boat’s motor. She turned her head toward the sea and saw scattered groups of people, calling out the names of their loved ones and crying for God’s help. People desperately grabbed on to anything that floated—luggage, water canisters, even other people, pulling them down with them. Doaa noticed that the sea around her was colored red and realized that people were being sucked into the boat’s propeller and dismembered by its blades. Body parts floated all around her. It was worse than anything she’d ever seen during the war in Daraa. She watched in horror as one moment a child was crying and struggling to hold on to the boat, then the next he lost his grip and slipped into the blades, his small body cut to pieces. There was nothing but blood and screams. She forced herself to turn away and instead shift her focus over the deck. She saw a lifeless man trapped in the metal scaffold used for fishing nets, a rope wrapped around his neck, his arms and legs cut off, his face covered in blood.
Overwhelmed with panic and fear, Doaa began shouting out desperately, “Bassem!” She was terrified that he was also one of the dead. She shouted his name over and over, all the while staring at the mangled body of the man caught in the rope. A few long seconds later, she heard Bassem’s voice: “Doaa! Doaa, don’t look at him, look at me!” Doaa turned her head toward the sound of his voice and spotted him in the sea. The metal rim of the boat was cutting into her hands, and her legs dangled in the water. She wanted to go to Bassem but couldn’t bring herself to jump into the water. But the boat was sinking at an angle that was drawing her toward the spinning propeller. More people were being drawn into its blades. Somehow she still could not bring herself to release her hold and allow the sea to swallow her. “Let go, or it will cut you up, too!” Bassem cried out. He tried to swim to her, but the waves bore him away.
She heard a voice beside her: “Do what he says, Doaa!” It was Walid. He was holding on to the sinking stern with his one good hand, staring at the propeller. He tore his gaze away from it and turned to Doaa, a frightened look on his face, and said, “I can’t swim. I don’t have a life jacket.”
“I can’t swim either.” Her life jacket was long gone and they were both inching closer to the propeller.
Bassem cried out again: “Doaa! Jump! Now!”
“We have to let go,” Doaa yelled to Walid, although she was petrified of the idea.
A look of sadness replaced the terror on his face. “Leave your hope in God,” he said to her with a kindness that made her want to cry. “If you believe in God, he will save you.”
She closed her eyes and opened her hands, falling backward, arms and legs spread as she hit the water’s surface. She was buoyant for a few seconds on her back, then felt someone pulling at her head scarf, which slipped off her head and into the sea. As she lay floating on her back, she felt the ends of her long hair being yanked under the water. Those who were drowning below were beyond reason and grabbed at whatever they could reach for to try to pull themselves to the surface. Their hands grasped at her head, pulling Doaa’s face below the water. Somehow, she managed to push their hands away. She gulped for air, turned upright, and moved her arms and legs to try to stay above water. She remembered that that was what swimming was, so she did her best to tread water as she watched the last bit of the boat sink into the waves. Nothing was left but wreckage, blood, corpses, and a few other survivors. She felt things moving beneath her and knew that they were people drowning, and that any moment one of them might grab her legs, pulling her under.
Then she spotted Bassem swimming toward her holding a blue floating ring, the kind toddlers use in baby pools and shallow seas. “Put this over your head so you can float,” he said as he passed the partially inflated ring over her shoulders. Scared that someone might try to grab her legs, she pulled herself on top of the ring, her legs and arms dangling over the sides, then suddenly fainted from shock and exhaustion. Bassem splashed seawater on her face to bring her back.