The BBC’s Jeremy Bowen and cameraman Nik Millard recently visited Qaboun, a Damascus suburb outside regime control, 20 minutes’ drive from the city centre. Their report showed a resilience amongst the opposition that is built on more than guns and bullets. As well as interviewing residents and fighters from the Free Syria Army, they filmed an underground hospital, a kitchen providing residents free meals, and the carefully tended war cemetery.
We stood in a battered street about 500ft (150 metres) from the Syrian army’s positions. A man stood outside his home with three small children. He did not want to give his name.Watch the film and read the accompanying story at BBC News.
“Life’s very difficult here, not easy at all,” he said. “There’s shelling, mortars, shooting. It’s a very difficult life here. But where else can we go?
“This is our home, our country. We have no other place. God willing, the rebels are going to win. The regime is unjust and unfair. History shows that injustice doesn’t last.”
Qaboun has organised itself effectively. A network of surgical clinics are dispersed around the neighbourhood. An underground kitchen provides about 3,000 free meals every day.
When we were there, they were preparing bulgur wheat, stewed with tomatoes, stirring big pots simmering on gas rings with long two-handed spoons, like thin metal oars.
