Noah's ark of the victims of the Islamic State

Qahraba does not flinch when he sees us. It is a morning of overcast sky and he, an eight-year-old lion , remains lying in the middle of the moor. It looks splendid . Every so often he twists his face and his penetrating eyes scrutinize the intruders. The rite lasts only a few seconds and then the animal returns to its quiet contemplation of the horizon covered by trees and clouds. Qahraba was born in the city of Aleppo and during his first years of life he resided in a zoo in the vicinity of the once economic capital of Syria, nicknamed Magic World.

When skirmishes and bombings began to pierce his street and four years of battle were unleashed that left more than 30,000 civilian victims, abandonment rushed through the facilities that once did the wonders of the little ones. Everyone - from employees to the public and the owner - fled in terror from the ravages of the race . All except guests confined in the cells of the complex. "The owner was the one who begged to save the animals. Of the 200 that once hosted the enclosure only 13 survived ," he recalls in conversation with Chronicle Mustafa Khraisat, director of Al Mawa, the final destination of the last of Aleppo's zoo .

A dirt road - encaramado a mountain north of Gerasa, a Jordanian city famous for its Roman ruins, 50 kilometers from Amman - leads to Al Mawa, the maximum security sanctuary that offers a second chance to predators who managed to survive to the wars of a region, the Middle East, devastated by the barbarism of humans. A kind of Noah's Ark that spreads over 110 hectares with the few remains that were safe from shipwreck. Qahraba is one of the lucky ones who lived to tell it. "We put Qahraba, electricity in Arabic."

Because of his behavior , he must have been held in a very small cage . When he arrived here, he immediately threw himself on the fence. He received up to four electric shocks and we had to shut down the system until we managed to reassure him, "recalls Saif Rwashdeh, one of the caretakers of the center, while watching the felid, transfigured now in a haven of peace.

Qahraba belongs to the dozen survivors who landed in the shelter two years ago after a complicated rescue mission crossing enemy trenches and achieving the enemy placet on the battlefield. "The first thing we think is that it was an impossible mission . Animals had to be transported through too many rebel groups. All radical."

The whole world is fighting here. There are the Russians , the Americans , Hezbollah , the Syrian Government, Turkey, the Kurds, the Islamic State , "recalls Amir Jalil, the Egyptian veterinarian of the international organization Four Paws who worked the miracle of saving the dying battalion of resistance. plot by which Qahraba swarms beautifully with other German animals that starred in the trip. "In total, we have sheltered another lion named Hamza; to two lionesses, Halab [Aleppo, in Arabic] and Dana; and the Loz [almond] and Sukkar [sugar] bears, ”Khraisat details.

On the hillside, scattered among the thickets and bounded by high electrified gates , rest the rest of the fauna coming from the city of Mosul - the once Iraqi capital of the caliphate of the self-styled Islamic State - or the Palestinian strip of Gaza. Scenarios both of wild strife that terrified the tenants of ruined zoos . "Animals arrive in painful sanitary and psychological conditions . Months after being established here, they still feel terror when they hear a loud sound or the noise of airplanes, vans or strangers," admits Rwashdeh. "Upon receiving them, the first question we ask ourselves is how they have lived to know where to start. We examine them to detect the deficiencies and diseases they suffer and then we observe the behavior they have with other animals."

The inhabitants of Al Mawa usually share a medical part. After complicated bailouts and an existence under crossfire and shelling that borders the agony, they starve, starving and devastated.

"They arrive badly wounded , with health problems associated with the lack of food and variety of livelihood. Some are subjected to surgical interventions and require vitamins . Many are only skin and bones," says Khraisat.

The traumas accompanied the bear Lula and the lion Simba, the only tenants of the Mosul zoo who did not perish in the hell of the Iraqi city after months of arduous battle for their liberation. His transfer happened with the hum of the bullets through his urban geography.

"Lula is still here with us. Simba, on the other hand, was transferred to another reserve in South Africa," says the director of a unique venue in the region created four years ago by the Princess Alia and Four Paws Foundation. Since then, it is the shelter of the animals expelled by human strife, the den of those who seek comfort from the inexplicable. " Rehabilitation is a very complicated process handled by local and foreign experts.

"Their experience is vital to interpret the needs of these predators," Khraisat slips. The employees entrust their recovery to a balanced diet adapted to the deficiencies of each specimen; to toys like balls to "recover their natural behavior" and to a kind of aromatherapy treatment based on natural herbs and spices that are placed in their enclosures.

At mid-morning the engine of a pickup interrupts the silence. The vehicle is parked in front of the cells where Sultan and Sabrin frolic, one of the first pairs of lions found shelter in the complex after the 49 days of Israeli military operation that in 2014 seized 2,310 Palestinian lives in Gaza. 80 zoo animals also died before Jalil and his team of seasoned rescuers arrived . Sultan and Sabrin, among the thirty who did resist, suspend their stillness when they notice the van. It is your turn of food . Workers distribute their livelihoods faithful to the diet prescribed by veterinarians: 15 kilos of meat three times a week for lions and 16 kilos of fruit and vegetables daily for bears. "Sultan and Sabrin had spent their entire lives between four cement walls . They saw trees and earth for the first time here. Now they are enjoying their freedom, " Khraisat presumes as he prowls through his new habitat.

Those battered by war - once caught between troops of autocrats and legions of bloodthirsty jihadists - are not alone. In the confines of Al Mawa, wounds are also healed by victims of illegal species trafficking . Two imposing Bengali tigers, with an overwhelming beauty, doze a few meters below, crouched in the grove.

First they yawn and then, jealous of their intimacy, undertake the retreat by realizing the human presence. "They were to be sold as pets of the rich of the Persian Gulf countries but were requisitioned by Jordanian authorities in the middle of the smuggling route," Rwashdeh mutters.

Without the possibility of returning home, the thirty animals that occupy the ausculta reserve every inch of a land that aspires to become its definitive retirement. "We are looking for the best for them. If they are well here, they will stay forever. Otherwise, we will support their transfer," says the director, an engineer who has discovered the lines of an unknown passion among the roar and growl melody. "In Arabic Al Mawa means refuge or safe place, where people come to rest . We are trying to make this a paradise for them. The sanctuary where they reconcile with their roots."

According to the criteria of The Trust Project