Anifa Alonto
The first night Zulaika spent in the evacuation center, the floor reeked of dust, sweat, and fear. She was just eight, curled up between her grandmother, Ina Subaida, and her Aunt Amina. Around her, kids cried, and prayers drifted through the dark. Outside, Marawi’s sky was on fire with orange flashes of gunfire, lighting up the night. That’s when Zulaika realized, young as she was, that home could vanish, just like that.
Her father, Imran, had not come with them.
When the military ordered an immediate evacuation, Imran stayed behind at the padian, the old market where his grocery store stood like a second home. He told Ina Subaida he would follow. But that morning, fear had many faces. Imran feared losing the goods he had built from years of labor. He feared the chaos of extremists roaming the streets. Most of all, he feared for Toto and Dodong, his two Christian workers, men who had been with him since the store was nothing but wooden shelves and borrowed capital.
“They will kill them if they’re seen,” he said. “I won’t leave them.”
Days in the evacuation center dragged into weeks. Food came in irregular rations. Water, too, was scarce. Families who once lived in concrete houses now slept on thin mats, their dignity traded for survival. Children lined up for pater. Mothers queued for relief goods that sometimes never arrived. Nights were cold, the thin mats providing little warmth. Fear traveled through the center as rumors of nearby attacks stirred fresh panic. People got sick quickly. Every cough could be a fever, every scream a signal of new loss. Sometimes help came through the efforts of private groups, volunteers who brought soap, medicine, and just a sliver of hope. One morning, while Zulaika played with other children in the spaces between tents, she wandered and saw trucks carrying rice and blankets. She heard the name We Are Marawi, whispered with gratitude by mothers, like a prayer that still worked. Suddenly, she felt jealous seeing other kids with their mothers.
Zulaika’s mother was not with them. But she had her aunt Amina and Ina Subaida.
With no end of the Siege of Marawi in sight, and cramped in the evacuation site battered by heat, rain, and desperation, Ina Subaida faded a little with each passing day. She coughed through the night, bones sharp beneath her skin. Amina, only eighteen, and deciding to keep her college education on hold, became a mother to Zulaika overnight, washing clothes, lining up for rations, trying to keep the young girl from falling apart. Zulaika had tried asking about her mother, but Ina Subaida told her that it was not the right time for the truth to be revealed, that one day she would understand.
Amina just nodded, trying her best to give Zulaika the armor and care that was expected of a mother.
As weeks passed, the situation in the evacuation center did not improve. There was no money coming in. Every day, they waited for Imran to arrive.
But it was Toto and Dodong who finally came.
They looked hollow, thinner than before, carrying news too heavy to say. Imran had helped them escape Ground Zero through back alleys and broken walls, disguising them, guiding them until they reached safety. When they parted, Imran raised his hands as soldiers approached.
He never fired. He didn’t even get the chance. One bullet, and he was gone. A soldier thought he was an extremist.
Zulaika, in shock, whispered to her Aunt Amina, “Abuya didn’t make it out?”
Toto looked away, eyes downcast, shoulders burdened with sorrow and grief, while Dodong wept.
***
Long before the Siege, before the gunfire and the ashes, Zulaika’s story started with a quieter rebellion.
Imran met Katrina at the state university in Marawi. Both studied business, both dreamed bigger than their families allowed. Imran was a Meranaw Muslim, raised in tradition. Katrina was a Bisaya Christian from Bukidnon, strong in her faith and stubborn when it counted. They connected over long talks and shared prayers. Katrina saw something beautiful in Islam. Perhaps it was the discipline, the kindness, the sense of family. Love came fast and risky. But Katrina’s faith grew from understanding, not just feelings.
Their families hated the idea of them together. Imran’s family wouldn’t accept a Christian daughter-in-law, afraid it would shame their name. Katrina’s parents refused to accept a Muslim husband, calling it a betrayal. Both sides tried to break them apart, threw threats and guilt their way, but they held on to each other and to the faith they were building together.
Shortly after graduation, Katrina embraced Islam. She took the name Mariam. Following Islamic rites, she and Imran married in secret. Fully aware that neither family would ever accept their union, they fled the city to begin life anew. A year later, they were gifted with a daughter, Zulaika.
For four years, they lived between shadows and borrowed peace, until their families found them. The families forced them apart. Zulaika, barely three, was taken by Imran’s family. Imran was made to stay silent, his wishes buried beneath the will of others, his father in particular. Mariam was sent away. In defiance, neither remarried. Love became a wound they chose to keep open.
One night, Mariam sat in her cozy Abu Dhabi loft, frozen in front of the TV as live news from Marawi played out. She had built a good life as an assistant manager at a global clothing brand, independent, respected. But every night, head pressed to the floor in sajdah, she still prayed for Imran and the child ripped away from her.
One night, her heart stopped. There was Ina Subaida on the Filipino channel. She was frail, coughing, begging for help in a crowded evacuation center. The only person in Imran’s family who ever showed her real kindness. The only one who gave her warmth when everyone else had nothing but bitterness and anger.
Mariam didn’t even think. She booked a flight home before the panic could fade.
Marawi met her with rubble and sorrow. She arrived too late. Ina Subaida was gone, lost to illness and the misery of the camps, her gentle spirit snuffed out. Imran had vanished, too. War had finished what family strife had begun.
Zulaika just stood there when Mariam dropped to her knees and hugged her tight, both of them sobbing. Zulaika’s tears came fast and hot, each one heavy with the loss of her Abuya and Ina Subaida, with memories of hunger, fear, and cold nights as a displaced child. And now, finally, the mother she’d been waiting for. She wanted to ask her mother many questions: why she left, what the future would be, but at that moment, Zulaika was enveloped by a feeling she had not felt for a long time. The scent of her mother against her skin brought relief that she had waited for so long.
Mariam did not want her daughter to live in uncertainty. Not again, she told herself. There might be an invisible hand behind this. She will not let her daughter slip again. Perhaps, in the ruins of this conflict, a new life can start.
Mariam took Zulaika and Amina back with her to Abu Dhabi. Amina would study again. Zulaika finally slept in a bed that did not reek of loss and despair. Still, Marawi clung to them in nightmares, in news headlines, in unanswered questions.
***
Nearly nine years later, Ground Zero still bleeds. Thousands of people are waiting to go home. Billions were promised, but the city’s still in ruins, lives still in pieces. Greed outlasts the smoke. Extremism, twisted by hate, leaves wounds that go deeper than gunfire.
War doesn’t care. It kills fathers who only wanted to protect their families. It breaks mothers, no matter where they are. It forces kids to grow up long before they’re ready.
But in the ashes of the padian, those left behind carry more than memories. They carry love that’s been lost, courage hammered out in chaos, and scars that never really heal. In those quiet, shattered places, only the human heart remembers everything that happened, and everything no one should have to forget.