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“Our will to stand strong will not break. Despite our wounds, pains and the souls of our martyrs; we still have dreams and hopes of a victory on the ground of free Syria”.
Those are phrases which the Syrian people keep repeating every day; as most of the Syrian house have suffering and pains where the war affected their lives painting them in blue and miseries. However, those phrases are still the symbol of optimism and resisting against who work on oppressing and humiliate them.
The war in Syria have clear negative impacts on the lives of the Syrians regarding the psychological, social and living levels. So that poverty has befallen their lives pushing them to look for alternative means guaranteeing survival.
They takes advantage of everything in every possible way; even the remains of war and bombardment from under the rubbles and ruins from which some poor people use them to have their minimum needs to live. According to a statistics of ESCWA, more than 18 million Syrians are beyond the highest poverty line, and more than 4 million Syrians are beyond the foodstuff poverty line.
“Gaith” from Civil Defense in Idlib city narrated to us what he had seen:” After the massacre which took place in Idlib city by the Russian bombardment recently, while I was on my duty working on saving the trapped from under the rubble; I found people carrying bags to collect in them the broken wooden pieces here and there in order to use them later in warming, while others were gathering pieces of iron to sell them in the market. Here I wondered “what has war done to us?”
It becomes a usual scene to Syrians after every offensive targeting the buildings where it becomes a source of living to some people collecting iron of shells and rockets which claimed innocent souls; as well as collecting the remains of shattered glass borders of windows and doors to recycle them again.
“Need is the mother of invention”, it is a motto vey used in the Syrian crisis; a photo on social media revealed an heater was made of a rocket of warplanes where it was used as an alternative for already made heaters as the one of them reached 10 thousands Syrian pounds.
Despite the benefits of these remains of war, there are some risks; Abo Maher from Idlib countryside said:” While my son was collecting iron and wood pieces of a bombardment, a cluster bomb exploded killing him…ah!”
They are risking their lives facing difficulties so survive fighting poverty and hunger. From the depth of misery, hope arouse. They are holding on tight to their homeland despite the attempts by regime forces and the Russian ally to oppress them and break their will.
By Samah Alkhaled
Translated by Sabah Najem
Syrian Press Center
