CHANDIGARH: Not long ago, a man laden with explosives blew himself up near
Yazan Al-Hadad
's house in
Damascus
,
Syria
. It killed three of his neighbours. The 15-year-old Yazan didn't see the tragedy but the sound was enough to send him into a state of shock.
"A man with bombs all around his body blew himself right beside Yazan's house," said
Basem
Aboud, Yazan's coach cum interpreter, "Yazan went into shock, requiring psychiatric treatment."
Today he is here in Chandigarh his second visit to India -for the Asian Snooker & Billiards Championship, and is joined by 20-year-old Abd
AlKarim Maksod
as the other cueist from the war-ravaged country , in the fray here. Maksod is Syria's under-21 national champion and Yazan the under-17 national. Both hail from the same area in Damascus, which may not be too affected by the war in the country, but they still feel it's tremors from time to time.
"When we practice in Damascus, sometimes we hear bomb explosions from a distance," Basem said, "It's enough now. It's been 5-6 years of turmoil, people are tired, everybody in Syria is tired. I hope all who poke their noses in Syria's matters Russia, America or anybody else let Syrian people choose their future. I cannot remember any country that didn't intervene in Syria, including Islamic radicals. I hope it ends," the coach pleaded.
Thankfully, when Yazan suffered the shock, snooker had already happened to him. And it played a big role in his recovery. "We have a club in the area where we live. It has just two tables. I saw some guys playing and loved the sport. That's how I started in 2014," Yazan said in Arabic which his coach translated.
Notwithstanding the political turmoil, the sport's national federation in Syria hasn't stepped back in supporting their players. Apart from providing them with equipment, they also send them to tournaments in Asia.
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