Page 12 - Aruba Today
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WORLD NEWSTuesday 8 March 2016
AP Exclusive:
From calm to chaos: A reporter’s escorted visit to Syria
V. ISACHENKOV to dry across empty sec- with the residents reaching Russian airstrikes. we ran up the steep hill and
Associated Press tions — signs of life amid the for candy, and one half- An indifferent-looking Syr- around a corner to where
LATAKIA, Syria (AP) — At first devastation. seriously loaded his rifle to ian general said the cease- our armored trucks were
glance, the Mediterranean Troops at checkpoints ap- fend off some particularly fire was largely holding parked.
port of Latakia doesn’t look peared increasingly tense pushy boys. despite some shelling by I felt I was losing my breath
like a city at war. Its streets as we got closer to the But there was more curios- militants of the Nusra Front, after running in my heavy
are jammed with traffic, fighting, their look purpose- ity than danger. A female al-Qaida’s branch in Syria, flak jacket, and others
stylish women chat under ful and fingers on triggers. press officer from the Rus- which is excluded from the stumbled and fell, with the
palm trees, and idyllic or- Our bus was escorted sian Defense Ministry in- cease-fire. The Russian offi- Russian troops helping them
ange groves stretch for across central Hama prov- stantly became the focus cers weren’t so calm, and up. We frantically climbed
miles. aboard, the nervous Rus-
But the signs become ap- Syrian soldiers and Russian soldiers, who escort a group of journalists in the background, stand sian officers shouted our
parent on closer inspec- near a car covered by collage showing photos of faces of Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, names to make sure all
tion: a man in camouflage Syrian President Bashar Assad, left, and a Syrian general, President’s Assad brother, Maher Assad, were safe, and the trucks
shopping with a Kalash- center, in Maarzaf, about 15 kilometers west of Hama. sped away over a bumpy
nikov slung on his shoul- road. We could see little
der, the occasional military (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin) through the small armored
checkpoint, and rows of windows, and the feeling of
unfinished cottages and ince by a pickup truck of attention, with Syrian they nervously urged re- danger was intense.
apartment buildings whose with a heavy machine gun men elbowing each other porters not to stand at the But the trucks soon reached
construction was interrupt- mounted on top, with a sol- to get a photo taken with edge of a cliff overlooking a spot where our bus was
ed by Syria’s 5-year-old civil dier in a black bandanna her. the hills controlled by the waiting for us — a sign the
war. scouring the surrounding ___ militants. immediate peril had eased.
For a group of international landscape. A visit to mountain villages Reporters paid little atten- Medics treated those who
reporters on a five-day trip At an intersection outside near the border with Turkey tion, snapping pictures of scraped their arms and legs
to Syria organized by the Hama, we transferred to ar- was more harrowing. the idyllic landscape and after falling on the asphalt.
Russian Foreign and De- mored trucks of the Russian Most of the homes in Ghu- later moving down a street ___
fense ministries, the con- military — a clear indica- naymiyah, recently seized to chat with residents. On another day, a Russian
trasts were stark. tion of the danger ahead. by the Syrian army from Suddenly, an explosion and military plane flew us to
From our military-escorted Reporters clumsily climbed militants, were empty shells, a puff of gray smoke rose the capital of Damascus,
bus, we rode through a up the ladders, and we their windows and doors from the mountain slope where we saw entire neigh-
relaxed and sun-splashed continued under Russian missing and walls riddled by about 200 meters (yards) borhoods wiped out by
Latakia, located in the army escort. shrapnel. Residents who re- below. At first, I didn’t un- fighting, with barely a single
heart of President Bashar We were greeted in the vil- turned to inspect the dam- derstand what had hap- apartment building intact.
Assad’s Alawite homeland. lage of Maarzaf, about 15 age reacted with shock. pened, but a Russian offi- Just a few miles away, how-
We passed burned-out kilometers (9 miles) west of A few knelt to pray at a cer next to me immediately ever, other neighborhoods
tanks, armored personnel the city of Hama, by scores Christian church, its walls yelled: “All down! We are bore no sign of damage,
carriers and a shattered of heavily armed men from half-ruined and the floor under fire!” with streets filled with traffic
bus in areas of recent bat- the private militia of Sheikh covered with rubble and As I tried to hide behind a and busy shops.
tles. Ahmad Mubarak, an influ- broken glass. The devasta- nearby low concrete bar- We were taken to al-Tall,
And we came under fire ential leader in the prov- tion seemed incongruous rier on the street, I saw an- on the northern outskirts,
in a mountain village, with ince. We saw him sign a with the blossoming trees other puff of smoke from where hundreds of people
shells falling around us as deal pledging to respect and bright blue sky. a nearby explosion and gathered on the streets.
we scrambled up a street the cease-fire that began We then went to nearby reached for my camera. Children chanted “Bashar!”
to an armored truck and Feb. 27. Kinsibba, which sits on a That’s when another blast Portraits of Assad and army
safety. Some of his troops were steep hill overlooking a forced me to get down. heroes were everywhere.
___ in their early teens, and strategic road leading to More shells fell, and I real- The atmosphere seemed
Portraits of Assad and his they looked proud of their Idlib and Aleppo, Syria’s ized the next one might relaxed, but Syrian military
father, Hafez, looked down weapons and fatigues. onetime commercial capi- land on us. snipers patrolled the roof-
from billboards, walls and When a Russian truck un- tal that has been the focus A Russian APC rushed for- tops.
windows on Latakia’s busy- loaded humanitarian aid, of a recent government of- ward to shield us from We went farther north
streets, packed shops and the sheikh’s troops mixed fensive backed by intense shrapnel. Under its cover, to the Christian hamlet
cafes serving kebabs and of Maaloula, which has
humus. changed hands several
But the front lines of the times in the war. Set into a
civil war that since 2011 mountainside with breath-
has killed a quarter-million taking views, the town is
people and displaced half overlooked by the Catho-
of Syria’s population were lic monastery of St. Sergius,
only about 50 kilometers locally known as Mar Sarkis
(about 30 miles) away. and dating back to Byzan-
As our group approached tine times. A narrow gorge
those lines, half-finished leads to the Greek Ortho-
construction projects gave dox convent of St. Takla, a
way to houses damaged place of worship since the
by fighting. Many had walls early days of Christianity.
riddled by shrapnel, a miss- Some people in Maaloula
ing balcony or a roof blown and other nearby towns
off. In some places, card- still speak a version of Ara-
board replaced missing maic, the language Jesus
walls, and clothes hung out is believed to have used.q
