SYRIA: Residents of a Syrian town of Qusair struggle with their daily live with food supplies, medicine and fuel running out

Record ID: 280386

  • Title: SYRIA: Residents of a Syrian town of Qusair struggle with their daily live with food supplies, medicine and fuel running out
  • Date: 4th March 2012
  • Summary: QUSAIR, SYRIA (MARCH 1, 2012) (REUTERS) WIDE OF QUSAIR TOWN MOSQUE IN QUSAIR MAN WALKING IN STREET CHILDREN PLAYING MAN SHOWING THE AFTERMATH AND DAMAGES OF SHELLING (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) MOHAMMED, RESIDENT OF QUSAIR, SAYING: "A man was drinking tea here and a shell hit him and he died, the shell came from Bashar al Assad's troops." CLOSE OF TEA CUP/BLOOD ON THE CUP
  • Embargoed: 19th March 2012 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Syrian Arab Republic
  • Country: Syria
  • Topics: Conflict,Domestic Politics,People
  • Reuters ID: LVA4AI0GKAV4RIN59VSPZXVDT1CP
  • Story Text: When the fighting stops, Qusair feels empty. An odd motorbike rumbles to life and buzzes away. Men sit by shuttered storefronts, talking in hushed voices.
    But when the artillery and rifle fire begins, the din of war consumes the town. The men pack up their chairs. The children disappear indoors. Black smoke rises on the horizon.
    For nearly six months, Syrian troops and tanks have blockaded this town of about 40,000 people, cutting its normal supplies of food and fuel. Medicine is smuggled in from neighbouring Lebanon, about 12 km (seven miles) to the south.
    Qusair provides a glimpse of how the peaceful protest movement in Syria against President Bashar al-Assad has turned violent, sectarian and costly in human terms.
    Bread, a Syrian staple, is becoming ever scarcer in Qusair. Heating oil, needed to ward off the winter cold, is even harder to come by. Government offices are shut, paralysing life in a town where many used to work for the state bureaucracy.
    Abu Kazem, a 70-year-old retired Syrian army officer, was chatting with neighbours near his apple and apricot fields last September when he heard gunfire erupt. After it died down, he went back to the site where his sons had been working, but could find no trace of them. Three days later, the bodies of two sons were returned to him, riddled with bullets. Now, Abu Kazem says, he would gladly give everything he has left to achieve freedom from the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
    "A patrol of the Syrian army opened fire on the people who lay on the ground, the soldiers were enjoying it while they were killing the people, they even killed the injured people," Abu Kazem said.
    "There is no bread, no fuel, there is nothing. We are getting supplies in many ways; we get from our neighbours, friends and cousins," he added.
    So far, residents say, Sunni-Christian ties have held steady, while Qusair's few hundred Alawites - members of Assad's Shi'ite-rooted sect - keep mostly to themselves.
    But tension soared last month when Christians of the Hanna family, known as Assad loyalists, captured half a dozen Sunnis, apparently in reprisal for the killing of one of their own by rebels who suspected him of firing on protesters. Sunnis then abducted several Christians, prompting town elders to intervene.
    The conflict between local fighters and Assad's forces surrounding the town has taken a toll.
    The arrival of the Free Army fighters in Qusair late last year has given the town some respite from the shabbiha (militia loyal to Assad), allowing them to hold funerals and demonstrations in relative peace.
    But few expect that to last. Once Assad's forces have eliminated rebel strongholds in Homs, Syria's third largest city about 20 km (13 miles) to the northeast, residents believe they will move to Qusair to sever the smuggling routes that bring in weapons and medicine.
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