Photo Gallery Fates from a War Zone
The Doctor from the Gassed Suburb
Dr. Armin is from Moadamiyah, the suburb of Damascus where a significant poisonous gas attack took place in 2013. For the last year, Moadamiyah has been besieged and people are going hungry. "The hunger was worse than the gas," he recently told SPIEGEL. "With gas, the situation is clear: Those who die, die quickly. Those who survive recover. But hunger kills you slowly." Armin took advantage of negotiations over a local ceasefire to escape to Lebanon at the beginning of March. Now, he is waiting for freighter passage to Turkey. From there, he wants to travel to northern Syria where he intends to work in a hospital.
The Student from Yarmouk
This photo shows the beseiged Damascus quarter of Yarmouk as a UN aid convoy arrives to distribute food for the first time. Many people in the quarter are starving. Since then, the UN has repeatedly been prevented from delivering supplies there. The 26-year-old Omar and his family lived in the district until the end of 2012. When SPIEGEL ONLINE met him in the summer of 2012, he dreamed of continuing his studies in Europe. Currently, he is imprisoned in Malaysia as an illegal immigrant.
The Revolutionary Council of Manbij
Manbij was the first large Syrian city to be taken over by the opposition. By the time SPIEGEL visited in the summer of 2012, it was already under the control of a "Revolutionary Council." The city's remoteness was one factor in government forces abandoning the city without a fight. But its isolation has since become its Achilles heel. In January 2014, Islamist radicals from the terrorist group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has been in control of Manbij, though the group has withdrawn elsewhere.
When the ISIL radicals marched into Manbij at the end of January, many of the revolutionary council members had to flee across the border to the Turkish town of Kilis, including the lawyer and poet Hassan Neifi, who can be seen on the right in this image from the summer of 2012. "If we hadn't fled, ISIL would have killed us," Neifi says. The radicals have kidnapped several of Syria's most prominant pro-democracy activists. Some have been murdered.
Munzer Sallal, a young economist, was also a revolutionary council member in Manbij. He fled to the north in January of this year, but he refuses to give up. "Now, we have to start from the beginning, but this time, we have to fight," he told SPIEGEL. In recent weeks, they have begun staging nighttime guerilla attacks against the jihadists from ISIL.
The Pharmacist from Irbin
This photo shows protests which took place in the city of Irbin in April 2012. In August of 2013, SPIEGEL spoke with the pharmacist Abu Ahmad, who was working in the hospital there in an attempt to help victims of the poison gas attack in Damascus. Abu Ahmed still lives in Irbin. "We must be self-reliant," he says. The city has been under seige for the last two years and has frequently come under fire. It is also broke, there are no jobs left, most people have spent what money they had and food prices have shot upwards. The mood is tense with the initial euphoria since crushed by hardship.
Abu Ahmed sounds unemotional yet insistent. Currently, he is primarily concerned with Irbin's vaccination program and coordinates the dangerous effort to smuggle in vaccines for polio, tetanus, hepatitis and the medicines necessary for the some 1,000 babies in Irbin. The largest project, though, is the schools. A total of nine schools have been set up in cellars and bunkers for "education free of propaganda," as Abu Ahmed says.
More than 4,000 children attend classes in an effort funded by American organizations and the German group Adopt A Revolution. "Once the first children collapsed from hunger, we began receiving $3,640 per month more for school meals. That is only enough for the 700 elementary school pupils, and they only get something every other day. But people can see that the idea of a civil society is alive. If our schools didn't exist, the only thing available would be the Islamist schools," says Abu Ahmed.
The Survivors of the Houla Massacre
This image shows rebels in a part of Houla in November 2012. In July of that year, SPIEGEL spoke with seven eyewitnesses to a large massacre. All seven have since left Houla. The 17-year-old Maryam al-Sayyid and her mother, who lost half of their family, fled to the border city of Cerablos. One family had relatives there and the others followed. Maryam has since married an engineer from Hama. But more out of need than love. "She was the best match in the camp and he was as well," one relative commented dryly.
This photo shows Houla residents taking shelter from an artillery attack in November, 2012. In July 2012, SPIEGEL spoke with Mohammed Faur Abd al-Rassaq in Houla. He left the city last September and now lives in the Turkish border town of Reyhanli. He left out of fear that militants from the neighboring village would return and resume killing. Abd al-Rassaq has become disillusioned. "I thought the regime would collapse and the state would survive. But now the state is collapsing and the regime is still there."
The Peace Movement in Damascus
In September 2012, SPIEGEL ONLINE met with Rima Dali during her short visit to Beirut from Damascus. The 33-year-old Syrian was one of the few at the time who still believed that her country could be changed with peaceful protests. In November of 2012, she and three other young women unfurled a poster reading "Stop All Military Operations in Syria" in the old town of Damascus. She was immediately taken into custody and was only freed as part of a prisoner exchange a few months later. She has not taken part in a demonstration since.
The Families of Midan
SPIEGEL ONLINE visited 28-year-old Nabila and her family in June 2012 in Midan, a quarter of Damascus which was home to many confectioners. At the time, it had become increasingly closed off because of repeated demonstrations. Rebel fighters had also become ensconced in the quarter. In July 2012, the Syrian army bombarded the district and pushed the rebels out. This image shows the damage done in the attack. Nabila fled to Cairo with her parents. "We are now scattered all over the place," she says of her family. One sister lives in Jordan and a brother is in Lebanon.
The Youth of Syria's Upper Class
In the summer of 2012, five young Syrians from the country's upper class partied through the night in Beirut. Three of them supported the regime, two backed the opposition. Now, they are united in their fear of radical Islamists. Like many upper class Syrians, they have remained largely unaffected by their country's civil war. The Assad opponents Dima and Samir are now living and working in Europe. The three that supported Assad have found well-paid jobs in Beirut.
The Opposition Mayor
When SPIEGEL caught up with Abdulaziz Abshini in the Idlib Province village of Korin in April 2012, the English professor was busily involved with organizing the defense of his hometown. He was a little bit of everything: judge, mayor and a contact point with the outside world. Then the war returned. Korin was repeatedly bombed and it gradually emptied. Abshini, too, fled with his wife and children to a cabin in the forested hills nearby. In the winter, only a small woodstove provided heat. By December 2012, the proud villager had become embittered.
Now, Abshini lives on the Turkish side of the border. Syrians who can speak fluent English are in great demand by the UN and aid organizations. Within weeks, the refugee Abshini became the head of his refugee camp. "That wasn't exactly my plan, but at least I am doing something meaningful and I can pay my rent," he says.
