Syrian exiles speak, five years into the war

Five years ago this month unbridled anger and a demand for change bubbled to the surface in Syria. What happened since makes for grim reading: more than 250,000 people are thought to have died and almost five million have been made refugees, a large portion of whom have fled to Europe.

More than 10 million more have been displaced inside Syria, where they remain at the mercy of air strikes, barrel bombs and radical groups.

For many, life in the Syrian capital of Damascus before the revolution was bliss; for others, the uprising was the obvious culmination of widespread rural poverty and decades of state repression.

"Life was like any other developing country, where everything was very centralised in the capital at the expense of the rest of the regions and smaller cities and villages. But in general it was a good life for everyone," said Ahmad, who left Syria for Spain in 2013 where he now runs his own business.

He said that during the early stages of the revolt in 2011 little changed in Damascus, at the time ringed by security checkpoints and cut off from the unrest in its hinterland, except on Fridays when thousands of people protested after prayers. Damascenes who chose not to protest remained in their homes.

“The real change began at the start of 2012, when blood were shed excessively. Then a wave of sadness collapsed upon the society, because they knew – right then – that this wouldn’t pass easily.”

Others were hit harder.

Crackdown

University student Mais (29) found herself in the southern city of Deraa when the first major security crackdown took place on March 18th, 2011. She had been in the city visiting relatives when she witnessed the episode that would come to divide a nation – and the wider world – and lead to one of the most intractable conflicts since the second World War.

“A lot of revolutionaries were in the streets calling for freedom when the solders started firing on them,” she recalled. That day, at least five were killed and dozens of others detained by security forces, never to be seen again.

“The people woke up from their numbness,” she said. When her brother, an activist, was abducted and found dead outside Damascus in 2012, Mais blamed the regime’s security forces.

Today she is married, and lives in a town in south Turkey. "I left Syria for Turkey because we lost my brother and my family didn't want to lose me too. Also I'm a girl if they [the security forces] took me at that time I would be raped by them."

Deadly journey After seeing his family home destroyed in shelling last summer Basil Saloukha, a translator from south Damascus, joined the hundreds of thousands of people on the deadly journey from Turkey to northern Europe. Fearing smugglers would steal what little cash he, his wife and one-year-old daughter had, he opted to trek north alone. His trip through six countries took “one month and six days” – weeks longer than is usually the case.

Now he lives in a tiny rural hamlet in southern Austria where he awaits refugee status approval for his family.

“It’s very quiet here, but we needed that change from Syria,” he said. “People are welcoming.”

Yet despite the war-fuelled inflation, rolling power and water cuts and the near-collapse of the local economy, some are determined to remain in Damascus and help.

"Most of my family and friends have fled, but they call us and tell us that they're not happy and that they are not being treated well as per the expectations they had in mind," said Rama Tarabishi, a humanitarian aid worker for the United Nations who stayed in the capital. "I wanted to serve the needy and desperate people of Syria."

Though a ceasefire in areas of the country contested by government forces and opposition fighters appears to have largely held out, allowing civilians to send children to school with a little less fear and to shop at local markets, the feeling persists that an end to the war may be years away.

“It’s hard to foresee a positive future given the chaos and the complications of the current political and economic situation,” said Tarabishi. “But I shall not lose my faith that Syria will rise again, stronger than ever.”