Back from the Shadows

Algeria witnessed a strange story after a man returned from the dead after more than a quarter of a century of absence and 16 years of officially announcing his death. The hero of the story is Ahmed Atwi, an elderly man of 62 years old.

The story began with Samir Atwi (37 years old) receiving a phone call on September 23, 2017, stating that his father was alive.

Samir, who had not seen his father since he was 13 years old, did not believe what was said in the call, and considered it a joke if not a lie, before the calls were repeated and with them the confirmation and insistence on the strange news.

Samir called his younger brother Saber Atwi, who works as a bus driver, to tell him this news, but the latter in turn hung up the phone, almost certain that what happened to Samir falls within the framework of “phone lies”.

The situation felt surreal; at first, he found it impossible to believe the caller’s words — unless the caller was someone from their area who could provide specific details about the old man, suggesting he might truly be their father.

The document that made everyone who knew Ahmed Atwi certain of his death was the official death certificate issued by the municipality of bab El oued, to which his village belongs.

Even the birth certificates of the three children who were left behind by their father when they were young children, and their civil status cards, he would write the phrase “deceased” in the margin, referring to their father Ahmed.

Saber says:

“All the documents that we extracted starting in 2008 were printed with the phrase “deceased,” even though the news of the father’s death was announced since the floods of Bab El Oued in the capital Algiers on November 10, 2001, during which everyone thought he had died.”

What Saber and his brother Samir remember about their father’s death is the house of mourning that was set up after their father Atwi Ahmed’s name was placed on the list of those who drowned at sea after the Bab El Oued floods in 2001.

The missing father, Ahmed Atwi, tells the other side of the strange story after he reached the age of 62.

He left home in 1992, heading to the capital, Algiers, to work; hoping to provide the necessities of life for his family, but the economic and security conditions in the country at the time made him fail to achieve his goals.

Sheikh Ahmed says that the security and economic conditions at the beginning of the nineties of the last century were difficult, and in the capital, to which he moved, he would work one day and sit for days in construction sites and other places, and “because of my failure at work, I decided not to return home unless my condition was stable and I could make my children and wife happy, which did not happen.”

The father adds that as the years passed, his psychological state became more complicated, especially since he knew that his children were starting to grow up and would understand his difficult situation,

“I was ashamed to return unless I did something for them, so I cut off all communications and visits.”

He reveals that he never heard the story of his false death, saying: “I was living in one room in the middle of the Al-Hamiz commercial district in the capital without any identity documents.”

There was a waiter working in the restaurant that Sheikh Ahmed frequented, and he was confused by his situation, especially since he lives without a family. He tried to get closer to him and sit with him to talk to him while he served him food.

Ahmed says:

“That waiter had high morals. He would sometimes eat with me. I enjoyed him a lot and considered him one of my children. I vented my worries to him, and I even told him everything that had happened to me, but he did not tell me that he was from the outskirts of the town where I had previously lived.”

In September 2017, the waiter decided to reunite the family that had been separated for 25 years, so he intensified his communications and reached Sheikh Ahmed’s village.

The youngest son, Saber, says:

“We received information indicating that there was someone working in the capital, asking about the Atwi family, and about our names, Samir and I, before he got my brother Samir’s number and called him to arrange the meeting.”

He adds that at first this person asked his brother about the family situation, and the condition of his father, before he surprised him by telling him that his father was alive and well and lived in front of the restaurant where he works in the Al-Hamiz neighborhood.

Saber adds:

“This news shocked and surprised us and we did not believe it at first before my brother, cousin and I decided to travel to the capital to confirm and remove this confusion.”

On September 24, 2017, the two sons traveled to the capital with the waiter, and they arrived and sat at the same table with him without him realizing that they were his sons.

Ahmed says:

“I was sitting with my two sons and the apples of my eye at the same lunch table, without knowing them, and I started talking about the worries of life and the pain of separation.”

His son Saber recounts how they met him, saying:

“Through what the sheikh was telling us, we were sure that we were with our father, and we rushed to embrace him with joy and he returned with us to the house whose family, neighbors, and the entire city, in fact the entire state, had not slept since my father Ahmed’s return.”

“My joy is indescribable, and I can hardly believe it, weddings and celebrations for my return,” with these words Ahmed Atwi recounted what happened after his return and what he discovered about his family, which had changed a lot.

The returning father says:

“I left the family of 4 and found it consisting of 15 people. In addition to my three sons and my wife, I was blessed with 9 grandchildren, not forgetting, of course, the wives of my sons Samir and Saber.”

And the strangest of all, I found my death certificate in the corners of the house, and everyone who visited me looked at me as if I had “returned from death.”

After everything that happened, and the appearance of the father after 25 years of documented death, his children are working hard to settle their documents with the civil status authorities.

The son, Saber Atwi, says:

“The beginning was by informing the National Gendarmerie Brigade, whose members went to the house and investigated the case. After that, we went to the municipality, which directed us to the court.”