Raheef Ghanem* Note: The editorial team changed some names to ensure interviewees’ security Hanan, 34, was drinking coffee over the melodies of Fairuz on a May morning this year when she heard a missile fall on her neighborhood of Akrama in Homs. Silence prevailed for a few seconds before pandemonium spread and residents began running towards the elementary school where [...]

Salem Nassif (Damascus, Syria) - The Syrian regime has retaliated against many public employees who support the opposition by dismissing them from their jobs following their arrest. This is taking place in violation of Syria’s labour law governing state employees, which only allows for the termination of employment as punishment in specific cases, and then only with the approval of [...]

Editor’s Note: All names are pseudonyms At the Nahr Aisha checkpoint at the southern entrance to Damascus, 10-year-old Maher moves along the endless queue of cars that are waiting to cross into Damascus, asking drivers and passengers to buy one of the several cigarette packs he is holding. His father is sits on the sidewalk preparing coffee and tea to [...]

Mariam Abdullah * Editor’s Note: The editorial team has changed the names of some of the speakers for their own safety. (Damascus, Syria) — A 40-year old woman who calls herself Zainab, 40, prepares to light the burner in her ghazleh cart, where she makes a sweet snack similar to cotton candy. She is parked outside a school that shelters [...]

Editor’ Note: The editorial team changed the names of some of the interviewees for their own safety. By Raafat al-Ghanem (Zaatari, Jordan) - Um Ahmad took refuge in the Zaatari refugee camp in northern Jordan after fleeing across the border from her home in Syria with her two daughters. When a reporter from The Damascus Bureau met with her in [...]

*Mariam Abdullah Editor’s note: The editorial team has used only the first names of some of the interviewees for their own safety. Rudaina is a 32-year-old government employee, and Alawite, living in the neighbourhood of Ish Al-Warwar, one of the poorest slums on the outskirts of Damascus, where most of the residents originate from the coast. In addition to her [...]

Six-year-old Tasneem Jum’a didn’t know that the last time she would see her parents and seven of her eight siblings would be on January 2, 2013. That day, warplanes bombed her family’s two-story home in the Hay Al Asafeer neighbourhood of Muaddamiyyah, a suburb of Damascus. Tasneem’s parents and six of her siblings died on the spot, while Tasneem and [...]

Editor’s Note: The people interviewed for this story asked that their last names not be printed for their own protection. Rahif Ghanem 22-year-old Nizar and his wife Hiam have been married less than a year, but unlike most newlyweds, their life together has been marked by tragedy from the start. Hiam, 30, was married to Nizar’s brother Abdullah, a taxi [...]

Rajaa, 23, has not been able to focus on her job at the pharmaceutical company where she works since the February 22 explosion in Mazraa, which killed more than 50 people. ”I took a two-day leave of absence after the explosion because I could not rid myself of this sense of panic,” she recalls. “I was just five minutes away from [...]

Raheel Ibrahim The Latakia sports stadium has been transformed into a bustling tent city, as some 2,500 internally displaced Syrians taking refuge there struggle to eke out a living and rebuild a sense of normalcy for themselves and their families. Mohammad has turned his tent into a makeshift barber shop, while his neighbour, Ahmed, advertises telephone recharge cards on his. [...]