Audette Salem, who left her house in Sakiyat al-Janzeer to live for 1495 days in the very humble tent erected by the families of Lebanese detainees and missing in Syrian prisons in front of the UN ESCWA building in downtown Beirut, passed away on Saturday.

Early Saturday morning, she returned briefly to her former home to bring ice to the tent, which is without a refrigerator. On her return, she passed by a supermarket to buy food and vegetables so she could prepare a tabbouleh salad for her guests. Tragically, she was hit by a car at 9 a.m. as she crossed the road to return to the tent.

The Red Cross rushed her to the Beirut Government Hospital. She died at 4:19 p.m.

Audette was born in 1931 and she had been waiting for her daughter Christine and son Richard to return after they were kidnapped in September 1985.

“She was the ‘rock’ of the tent,” said Sonia Eid, whose son, Jihad, was abducted in 1990.

“I cannot go into the tent. She is no longer here. I still cannot imagine that she is not going to welcome us every time we visit the tent.”

Audette told the author during a visit on Thursday that she was feeling lonely, in addition to suffering from ongoing pain in her kidneys and back. Despite these ongoing hardships, she confirmed that she would not leave the tent because she did not want the efforts of Ghazi Aad, the founder of the organization Support of Lebanese in Detention and Exile (SOLIDE) which runs the tent in an ongoing protest in support of the missing and their families, to have been in vain.

“Ghazi reminds me of Richard. Every time I see him in his wheel chair, my heart tightens. I cook only for him. I am bearing the suffering of abandoning my house and living in a tent for four years, just because of Ghazi,” she said, just two days before she died.

Aad told NOW Lebanon that the accident that killed Audette proved the state authorities’ carelessness and negligence, because if the issue had been resolved, then the accident would never have occurred.

“She is a victim of irony. I cannot say anything more than that,” he added. 

Audette was awake when she was transferred to hospital, but suffered from hemorrhaging as her condition deteriorated and she went into a coma. Her heart stopped beating four times. Then, she never woke up.

Michel Naji Aoun, whose father was abducted on April 17, 1985, said that Audette had shouldered the responsibility of running the tent for the past four years and carried the cause of Lebanese missing persons and detainees in Syrian prisons.

“Her sole goal was to see her children return, she had no one left. She did not only die in an inhuman way, but also carrying a huge sorrow because she did not get the chance to see her children for the last time.”

Aoun added that Audette treated everyone as if she was their real mother and died because she went to buy vegetables to prepare a tabbouleh salad for visitors to her poor tent.

Aoun said he was afraid for the fate of the tent following Audette’s death and was concerned about who would continue to campaign for the detainees’ cause.

“All mothers are great and make efforts to bring their children home, but they have their own lives and other children. Audette lived in the tent because she has no one left. She always used to carry her pictures of Christine and Richard,” he noted.

He said that neither the media nor politicians had paid attention to the issue of the fate of the missing and that he was certain they would ignore Audette’s death. Despite this, he added, “we still have a little bit of hope.”

“They care about the upcoming parliamentary elections, they do not concern themselves with the mothers who are dying one after another,” he concluded.

Dori Nammoura, who survived the battle of Deir al-Qalaa between the Lebanese Armed Forces and Syrian troops on October 13, 1990, often looked after the tent whenever Audette needed to go home.

He was there when the accident took place and telephoned the Red Cross.

“The loss of Audette is a big agony, because she taught me a lot,” Nammoura told NOW Lebanon.

“Without her, the tent would not have endured,” he said.

SOLIDE will carry out a DNA test on Audette so her children can be identified, if this humanitarian situation is ever resolved.

The funeral will be held at 3 p.m. on Tuesday afternoon in the tent of the families of the Lebanese detainees and missing in Syria. SOLIDE encourages well-wishes and supporters to attend to honor the tireless campaigner with a fitting farewell.