Reports | 25 05 2020
Jamal ad-Din Abdullah || Abu Omar is taxi driver in his forties who used to work in Latakia. One day he was summoned by the Political Security branch, so he packed his stuff and his family and fled to Rabi’a; his village in Turkmen Mount where they can live without fear from imminent security raids. Life in Rabi’a means living under constant indiscriminate bombing and shelling, power outages, shortage of water, and lack of basics such as food and medicine. Um Omar says with a smile: "The shelling doesn't affect us any more! You see, almost five minutes after the shelling stops we resume our lives like nothing has ever happened!!" Um Omar is a young woman, a mother of two children under ten. She used to spend her mornings chatting and drinking coffee her neighbours, and then she would do the daily shopping for her family. Now, after their displacement, she wakes up early in the morning to collect she firewood for cooking, and then she would go to the village spring to get water for drinking, cooking and cleaning. She is living just as her grandmother used to decades ago. “My only toys here are bullet casings” this is what little Omar told us. He is missing his school, his friends, his toys and his home in Latakia, and he can’t wait to get his old life back.