From the rebel suburbs of Damascus to the enclave of Idlib, the long wandering and shattered dreams of Abu Malek al-Shami

Deraa, end of February 2011. On the wall of their school, a group of Syrian teenagers draw a message to Bashar al-Assad:

"Jay alek el dor ya doctor!"

("Your turn is coming, doctor!").

Damascus, mid-March, a hundred kilometers from the agricultural village.

Abu Malek al-Shami wakes up to the news of their arrest, and their torture.

He is their age, 16, and the young aspiring architect enraged at the regime's violence for simple graffiti.

Inspired by the fall of Mubarak in Egypt, preceded by that of Ben Ali in Tunisia, he takes to the streets.

In a few days, they are hundreds, then thousands of anonymous people shouting, like him,

"Allah Souria wa Huria wa bas!"

(God, Syria, freedom, that's all!) At the foot of the famous Baathist slogan,

"Allah Souria wa Bashar wa bas!"

, (God, Syria and Bashar, that's all!).

It is the beginning of the Syrian revolution.

And for him, a new life between hope and wandering.

Read also:

After ten years of war, Bashar al-Assad still reigns over a Syria in ruins

"Back then,

remembers the young man today

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