Five brothers, five countries: a family ravaged by Syria's war
The last time all five brothers were together was in August 2012, inside a bomb shelter in southern Syria.
It was Ramadan, and each night they broke fast to the sound of artillery and airstrikes pounding their besieged neighbourhood above.
A few days later, the Syrian army broke into the area, and each man fled.
“We never expected it would be the last time we’d see each other,” says Farid, the oldest of the five men. “Even with the shelling and bombing, we never thought we’d end up the way we have now.”
Once it became too dangerous to stay, each of the five brothers followed different paths, taking some risks, avoiding others. Now they find themselves scattered around the world, living in five different countries, facing five different futures.
Across the Middle East, the situations of the more than 5 million Syrian refugees created by the civil war, already precarious, has deteriorated in recent months. inside a “safe zone” prised from Kurdish control.
