A View From Homs

As the international community debates what, if anything, to do about Syria, the daily bloodshed and carnage there continues. For those just trying to survive, life has become quite brutal. One recent blog post, by Homs resident and blogger “Big Al,” provides a powerful and upsetting description of daily life in his city. Big Al, who tweets under the handle @BigAlBrand, readily agreed for me to share some of his recent observations from his post “Life in Homs” which I include below. The entire blog is available here.

12:30 PM, I got up, went out to buy vegetables which can’t be found easily, and as I was walking, I heard noise, and then a security forces’ vehicle passed by, followed by a tank, then a pickup truck with a huge machine gun (Shilka), I then went to a street where there’s more than one store and found most of them closed.

I went inside an open store and started collecting the things I need, only to be interrupted by the same vehicles once again passing right by me, and that’s when I quickly turned my Smartphone’s camera on and filmed the tank passing by without them noticing.

Seconds later, the Shilka started shooting and it was only 5 meters away from me. I was inside the store so I lied down on the floor next to the salesman. The glass shattered and the goods started falling from the shelves on us because the entire place was shaking badly.

Fire paused for a couple of seconds and that allowed us to crawl to another section of the store that has a wall to hide behind and a sink. The Shilka started shooting again and this time three bullets hit the store’s front. We ducked behind the wall waiting for what’s coming next.

At that moment, surprisingly, I wasn’t afraid. I actually felt like it’s the ending of me and was somewhat relieved. As a Homsi, I made peace with death a long time ago.“