Mahdi
Mahdi left Syria when the bombings intensified. After his daughter-in-law was killed in an attack, and they witnessed the deaths of several neighbours, he and his wife fled to Jordan with their granddaughter:
"We stayed for about seven months in a safe area underground in Syria, though it was very scary because of all the desert animals that lived there like snakes and scorpions. I was planning to leave the safe area after Ramadan, because the rebel groups and the military would target their bombs as soon as the mosque called for the Maghreb prayer. When I saw that the neighbor’s house had been bombed, and saw that they were all killed, I decided to leave."
Before leaving Syria, many people were internally displaced and travelled distances within the country in search of 'safe zones'. Often, as in Mahdi's case here, these 'safe zones' proved to be anything but safe. This report from Human Rights Watch offers a full analysis of such 'safe zones' and the experiences of internally displaced populations in Syria.
