The grocery store next door has just opened, rue Jemmapes. At its head, Osama Mourched, a man who comes from afar. From Syria, exactly. Between two rays and with his partner Samar, this political refugee retraces his exile.
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Today at 8:00 p.m.
A new supply point dresses the city center. Good news for the municipality engaged on the commercial vacancy front. Good news, too, for the Thionvillois. Because beyond the economic interest, the city is enriched culturally and friendly. L’Épicerie next door, rue Jemmapes, is above all the story of a couple who come from far away, very far away.
Nothing predestined this installation in Moselle of Osama and Samar, both Syrian political refugees. Nothing, “except the madness of the regime”, breathes Osama, without departing from a smile that is in no way commercial. Between two departments, this former manager of a furniture company in Damascus evokes his forced and forced departure from his native land. It was his love of the arts, of writing, that put him in the crosshairs of Bashar al-Assad’s servants.
“Either I left the country, or he put several bullets in my head”
“Besides my job, I was a screenwriter and I made documentaries. My writings did not please and I got arrested. An officer explained to him the two options open to him: “Either I left the country immediately, or he put several bullets in my head, a fate unfortunately reserved for one of my friends… He told me that a single bullet was enough to kill a political opponent, but that it took a full magazine to kill ideas. »
The same day, “at 6 pm”, Osama packed his suitcase, hastily collected some money before crossing the border into Lebanon. He will stay there for two years, without the possibility of working. Before migrating to Dubai, at the invitation of German acquaintances: “I wrote a sitcom but for lack of funding, the project did not go any further”. Leaving, leaving again to rebuild: “I made several asylum applications. It was France that reached out to me in 2018.”
For Samar, exile took another path. Threatened in Syria – “I facilitated the reception of compatriots forced to leave their city because of the war” – she migrated, with her son, to Venezuela, the country where she was born. So she left chaos for another suffering land: “It was too dangerous. The security situation was dramatic: my son was stabbed to steal his phone. To leave, to leave again, to survive. The course is set for Guyana. A sunny parenthesis before flying to Metz, in 2020, in order to offer “better opportunities for my child’s studies. »
Samar and Osama undertake a new adventure, commercial and sentimental. Photo RL /Armand FLOHR
At the same time, Osama, stranded in Amiens, is struggling to find a job: “I have multiplied the training courses, I have taken cooking classes, sent hundreds of CVs. But nothing came up except love…” He looks tenderly at Samar. Both from the same city in Syria, found themselves in Moselle thanks to friends. So far from home, they have embarked on a new adventure, commercial and above all sentimental: “Opening our business, here, in Thionville, in a dynamic city, it’s beautiful, isn’t it? “Even more by measuring the progress made.
