Stitching success Meet the fashion designers competing to represent the region at the International Woolmark Prize. Plus, tabloid! talks to competitors Nour Najem and Varoin Marwah
Farmer Faisal was forced to hide his sketches and paintings under Daesh
Under the Daesh group’s rule, Syrian farmer Faisal was forced to hide his sketches and paintings, but displaced by fighting he has finally been able to resume his beloved hobby.
He sought refuge with his family at the Ain Eisa camp in northern Syria three months ago, fleeing the battle for terrorist stronghold Raqqa, some 50 kilometres away.
The 47-year-old struggled to find art materials in the desolate camp so he meticulously made his own, tying threads pulled from a pillow case to a piece of wood to fashion a paintbrush.
He even gathered cigarette butts to use as charcoal for sketches depicting everything from portraits of his favourite singers to the daily life of the displaced.
“I’ve been drawing for 15 years and I would keep all the pictures for myself,” he told AFP.
“I’d forgo other things so I could buy paintbrushes and oil paints.”
“When the Daeshis came in, I wouldn’t dare draw,” he said, using an Arabic term for Daesh members.
The slender, tanned farmer Syria’s regime carried out air raids on one of the last rebel strongholds near Damascus yesterday, a monitor said, a day after it declared a ceasefire in parts of the besieged enclave.
The Syrian army on Saturday announced a halt in fighting for parts of Eastern Ghouta, a rebel-held region on the outskirts of the capital that has been ravaged in the six-year conflict.
“Regime warplanes targeted the area of Ain Terma with at least six strikes since early morning, and two raids were carried out on and around the city of Douma,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said.
The Britain-based monitor, which relies on sources in Syria for its information, did not report any casualties.
Regime shelling also hit the outskirts of the town of Jisreen yesterday, the Observatory said, after regime artillery and rocket fire on areas including Ain Terma and the town of Harasta on Saturday after the ceasefire started.
President Bashar Al Assad’s forces have surrounded the Eastern Ghouta region for more than four years, and regime forces have regularly targeted the area. They have for weeks been fighting rebels on the outskirts of Ain Terma. did not want to give his real name or the location of his village because he was forced to leave behind a son, imprisoned three years ago by Daesh.
He was reluctant to share much about the arrest, saying only that his son was accused of working for the Syrian government and is being held along with Faisal’s nephew.
Life at the camp is hard, with little shelter from the relentless sun.
Between pulling out sketches from his portfolio, Faisal tried to soothe his youngest daughter, who was suffering intense tooth pain that has gone untreated at the camp.
Like most of the displaced, Faisal arrived in Ain Eisa with little, and to resume his artwork he initially used whatever he found around him.
One day, a camp worker saw his pieces and brought him paper and coloured pencils, requesting a portrait to memorialise his son, a Kurdish fighter.
Another pencil sketch depicts a family in front of a tent, an old man leaning on a cane, and other people sitting on the ground. “I was looking out from my tent and I saw them, so I drew them,” says Faisal.
But the most painful of Faisal’s pieces depict life under Daesh, and particularly the experiences he fears his son may be enduring.