Hundreds who fled rebels tell stories of starvation and loss
At a shelter in Damascus, the strain of life under a crippling siege not far from the Syrian capital is etched on the gaunt faces of those who have escaped.
Hundreds of families have fled the district of Eastern Ghouta in the past few months, after 18 months of hunger and deprivation at the hands of rebel forces.
In the courtyard of the shelter in a multistory building, 52-year-old Abu Ali lies on a mattress on the ground, his walking stick next to him.
“Every day I would wake up at dawn and go with my daughter to rifle through garbage bags looking for lettuce leaves or anything to stave off our hunger,” he said bitterly.
“When I was working and I could provide for my family, I could call myself a man, but now ...” he said, his voice trailing off as he wiped tears from his face.
Abu Ali moved around Eastern Ghouta, trying to find somewhere safe for his family, before eventually a deal allowed thousands of people to leave the embattled area.
He moved to a shelter managed by the national reconciliation ministry under the supervision of government troops, escaping daily bombardment and fear of starvation.
Salma, another evacuee at the shelter in Qudsaya, northwest of Damascus, sits hugging her daughter.
“We decided to leave, even if it meant risking our lives,” the 35-year-old said. “In any case, our children were dying of fear, hunger and cold.”
A mother of two, Salma is from Eastern Ghouta’s Hazzeh region, and survived nearly two years of food shortages and medical shortages. “I haven’t eaten a tomato, a potato or a lemon for more than a year,” she said.
Salem, from Eastern Ghouta’s Deir al-Assafir, sold his wife’s jewelry to buy barley, only available at the exorbitant price of 1,000 Syrian pounds ($5.30) a kilogram.
Residents described other soaring prices. Eggs cost four times their usual price, and a kilogram of sugar cost 32 times the regular amount, evacuees said.
Volunteers described numerous ailments among those leaving the besieged region. “We’re seeing diseases that we haven’t heard of in this country for a long time, like tuberculosis and leprosy,” said Abu al-Majd, a volunteer at a center housing 860 people.
Doctors Without Borders warned this month that “the medical situation, and the general living conditions (in Eastern Ghouta), are beyond any red lines”.
Elsewhere in the shelter, a family savors a meal of fava beans. Next to them is Mustafa, his thin frame visible beneath his robes and evidence of the 40 kgs he lost in less than two years in Eastern Ghouta.
The 76-year-old once ran a chain of butcher shops in the town of Mleiha, and employed 60 people. He left behind homes and shops that are now vulnerable to looting.