I feel I should share this. Bear with me if it sounds hard to believe or like a story out of a movie; it is not. It is another story from the daily lives of many Syrians, whether they live back home or in exile.
This account details my most recent visit to Syria in April 2025. Since leaving my hometown of Al Raha in southeastern Syria in 2023 for a position in Lebanon, I occasionally return to Syria, drawn back by the pull of family and friends. I work as an international staff member with the United Nations World Food Programme, stationed in Lebanon. This particular trip was planned during my “rest and recuperation” leave — a period designated for recharging. But for me, it was primarily a chance to reconnect with loved ones left behind in our beloved country, struggling to rise to its feet after a crippling war and decades of dictatorship.
I traveled with my wife, Nawara, and our daughter, Alia, who is just 2 years old. We brought her with us because her grandparents and extended family deeply missed her, and we were also longing to reunite as a family with our loved ones back home. Many friends reassured us that things had been relatively calm in recent weeks, and that we would be safe bringing our baby. In retrospect, even before we arrived, the fragility of the situation in Syria was profound, a tension underscored by the harrowing events that unfolded during our stay. Syria, even after the significant political shifts following the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024, remains a landscape scarred by conflict and uncertainty. The new government seems committed to achieving stability, but the challenges are numerous. Armed factions, many with a jihadist mindset, remain.
On the night of April 28, and into the early hours of the next day, we sought some normalcy when we joined friends at a farm located near Mleiha, at the entrance of Jaramana in rural Damascus. Jaramana, a suburb southeast of the capital, is predominantly home to the Druze religious minority. Since the regime change, this area, like many others, has seen significant changes. Local residents, wary after years of conflict and feeling vulnerable in the new power vacuum, have established their own checkpoints to guard the area’s entrances.
The evening began peacefully. The weather was slightly chilly but pleasant, a welcome respite. The farm, owned by my friend Firas, spans several acres. One entrance sits near a checkpoint manned by Jaramana local groups, and the other sits on the main road leading toward neighboring Mleha. We were a small group: myself, Nawara, Alia, four friends and our colleague’s dog, Joy. Alia, bless her, fell asleep around 9 p.m., her usual bedtime, leaving the adults to enjoy a quiet evening.
The tranquillity was shattered around 2 a.m. An agitated phone call came through: It was our friend’s father, his voice tight with urgency. “Leave immediately,” he urged. “Tension is high. Calls are circulating to attack Jaramana.” His words punctured the evening’s peace, foretelling violence that perhaps wasn’t entirely unexpected. Days earlier, sectarian tensions had flared after a controversial audio recording circulated online. The recording, featuring a male voice delivering insults to the Prophet Muhammad, was falsely attributed to a local Druze cleric, Sheikh Marwan Kiwan, who later publicly denied any involvement, calling it a fabrication designed to provoke conflict. Despite his denial and investigations by the new government confirming the recording was not his, the damage was done. Extremists began issuing calls for retribution, leading to attacks on Druze individuals, including students in both Homs and Damascus, and escalating the already unstable situation in Jaramana.
As we hastily gathered our belongings, the sounds of imminent conflict reached our ears. The chants of many voices, sharp and menacing, echoed from the direction of Mleiha: “Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!” followed by “Hayya ala al-jihad! Hayya ala al-jihad!” (“God is greatest! Come to jihad!”). It was the dreaded call to jihad part that we knew too well, with its promise of violence in a battle no one among the people wants to fight, only some of the factions who are still armed and uncontrollable after many years fighting on the front lines in Syria’s civil war. Soon after, the terrifying sounds of clashes erupted — the sharp crackle of gunfire mixed with the heavier thuds of medium weaponry, possibly antiaircraft guns and rocket-propelled grenades, tearing red flares through the night air.
A group of fighters advancing from Mleiha launched an attack on the Druze checkpoint located at the southern entrance of Jaramana, just over 50 yards from where we stood on Firas’ farm. The sounds were deafening, terrifying — a relentless barrage of bullets punctuated by heavier explosions. The air grew thick, choking with the smell of gunpowder and, I can only assume, the scent of death itself. The first bullet’s sharp crack nearby woke our sleeping daughter, her cries joining the cacophony.
Instinct took over. We retreated to a room within the farm building, extinguishing all lights, huddling together in the suffocating darkness, united by raw fear. My own body betrayed me, reacting viscerally to the terror. My heart pounded against my ribs. My knees, ankles and muscles trembled, a visible tremor shaking my frame. My breathing became shallow, each gasp shaky. It was the physical manifestation of pure terror, impossible to hide.
Amid the chaos, two of our friends — Firas and Badi — showed incredible bravery. They crawled low on the ground toward the local checkpoint, shouting into the darkness that they were unarmed residents of Jaramana, simply trying to grab attention without being mistakenly shot. Miraculously, they reached the checkpoint, managed to explain that civilians were trapped nearby, caught directly in the line of fire, and then cautiously crawled back to us. Their reconnaissance confirmed our worst fears: We were pinned down, caught squarely in the middle of a firefight, with the only way out being right through the crossfire.
Our next challenge was immense: reaching the cars parked outside. We had to manage Joy, the dog, who was understandably petrified, and somehow soothe Alia, who was equally terrified. The journey involved crawling low to the ground, inching forward across the earth. I held Alia tightly against my chest, trying to shield her tiny body with mine, wrapping her with Nawara’s scarf. I no longer focused on her cries, but on the feel of her pounding heartbeat. My back felt exposed, vulnerable, as if anticipating the impact of a shell. My knees and elbows scraped raw against the dirt as we moved toward the vehicles. The few yards of crawling felt infinite.
As we neared the cars, the danger became horrifyingly personal. While I opened the door to turn on my car, a direct shot hit my vehicle, penetrating the front windshield on the driver’s side — exactly where I was headed — and missing me by seconds. The acrid smell of gunpowder burned my eyes and throat. Our friends’ car was behind ours. Moving quickly, we packed into the two vehicles, keeping all lights off as the local defenders at the checkpoint had instructed, urging us to drive away as fast as possible, even amid the ongoing clashes.
The scene at the checkpoint was pure chaos. We glimpsed about 30 armed men, locals defending their position, supported by another 50 men further down the main streets. Later, videos posted online by the attackers themselves showed a group numbering around 200 men advancing on the town. Driving without lights, navigating through the terrifying sounds of battle, everything felt surreal. Miraculously, our entire group reached the calmer parts of Jaramana. We had all arrived there safely and unharmed, except perhaps for the psychological trauma that may or may not resolve itself over time. We had to abandon my car back at Firas’ farm; ironically, the vehicle that had nearly been my death trap also inadvertently shielded us from some of the bullets coming from the Mleiha side.
The moment we crossed the threshold into the safety of our home, the dam of suppressed emotion broke. Nawara, Alia and I clung to each other and wept uncontrollably — tears of relief, terror and overwhelming exhaustion.
The following day, on April 29, the clashes subsided somewhat, though the tension remained thick. I contacted the locals who had manned the checkpoint the night before. They agreed to provide safe passage for me back to Firas’ farm to retrieve my damaged car. For the next two days, Jaramana remained under a full lockdown, an uneasy quiet enforced by both Syrian security forces, who had intervened to quell the fighting at the expense of suffering fatalities themselves, and the local residents who had defended their town. An agreement was eventually brokered between government representatives and Jaramana dignitaries, promising compensation for victims, accountability for attackers and efforts to restore calm and secure travel routes. But during the lockdown, fear was a constant companion, especially for my daughter. Alia kept repeating the phrases we had uttered in terror during the escape — fragments of fear overheard and absorbed. It was heartbreaking to see her haunted by the memory, by the sounds of stray bullets, by the fear we adults couldn’t mask. Two random shells near our home kept us on our toes. The situation was further aggravated by news of similar attacks targeting Druze communities elsewhere, like in Ashrafiyat Sahnaya, another Damascus suburb, and ongoing tensions in my hometown of Sweida in the south. The weight of it all, the feeling of being trapped in a recurring nightmare, felt immense.
This incident, this close encounter with death, solidified a painful realization that had been growing within me for years. I am tired of being Syrian — not out of a lack of love for my country or its people, but because of these impossible, life-threatening situations we constantly face. Tired of the relentless struggle, the fear, the instability. Tired of having to struggle yet another day for the right to lead an ordinary life. And although I have felt this way for a long time, after this last visit to Syria, I feel an unprecedented sense of finality. I cannot endure the idea that my baby girl has become traumatized, and I cannot fathom ever taking such a chance again by returning to Syria.
My exhaustion isn’t just from this single event; it’s the cumulative weight of many near-death experiences and run-ins with the brutality of the Assad regime since the war in Syria began in 2011. There were beatings that I endured because I protested for justice, loved ones I lost to various causes, deaths from war, imprisonment or disappearances. There was the onset of war and the erosion of normal life, the crippling economy and fuel crises. Power cuts and heating oil shortages, and the times we had to make do without medicine and bread. I adapted. We all did. But how does one keep adapting to an ever-deteriorating security situation? I was kidnapped at one time (as many Syrians were during the war) and held for 16 hours, and upon my release and return home, the regime security forces met me with suspicion and interrogated me for three days. I miraculously escaped death more times than I care to recall, and on one occasion, I returned home to my mother soaked in the blood of a stranger who had died in my arms, struck by a random bullet to his heart. Even joyous occasions, like my first date with Nawara, when we planned to meet at the historic Bab Touma district in Old Damascus, were marred by war. As I waited for her to arrive, mortar shells began to rain down on the square and I had to run for cover. My own house took a direct hit from a mortar, and although I remained unharmed physically after all of these near misses, they have chipped away at my sense of security.
My latest trip to Syria feels like the last straw.
This latest experience also compels me to share a message, particularly with my fellow U.N. colleagues working on Syrian matters, and anyone in my network involved in discussions about the country’s future: Syria is not safe for the return of refugees who fled Assad’s brutality. Many fear the violence of extremists who still operate as the country’s new interim government is trying to bring them to heel. My recent experience is just one snapshot of this. Syrians have already persevered through much worse, and I am hopeful that we will persevere still until we achieve the peace and normalcy that humans everywhere deserve. But until then, I am no longer willing to risk life or limb to visit my homeland. No Syrian should be forced to do so.
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