Syria’s decade of conflict: The many colours of Raqqa

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 17 June 2021

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Syrian born reporter Lina Sinjab presents a special series from Assignment’s award winning archive on the ten years of civil war in her country.

In the final programme from the season Lina hears from BBC foreign correspondent Tim Whewell who spoke to Abood Hamam, perhaps the only photojournalist to have worked under every major force in Syria's war - and lived to tell the tale. At the start of the uprising he was head of photography for the state news agency, SANA, taking official shots of President Assad and his wife Asma by day - and secretly filming opposition attacks by night. Later he defected and returned to his home town, Raqqa, where various rebel groups were competing for control. Other journalists fled when the terrorists of so-called Islamic State (IS) took over, but Abood stayed - and was asked by IS to film its victory parade. He sent pictures of life under IS to agencies all over the world - using a pseudonym. As the bombing campaign by the anti-IS coalition intensified, Abood moved away - but returned later to record the heartbreaking destruction - but also the slow return of life, and colour, to the streets. For months, he roamed through the ruins with his camera, seeing himself as ”the guardian of the city." Raqqa's future is still very uncertain, but Abood now wants everyone to see his pictures, which he posts on Facebook, and know his real name. He hopes the colours he's showing will tempt the thousands of families who've fled Raqqa to return home, and rebuild their lives, and their city.

Producer: Mohamad Chreyteh Sound mix: James Beard Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman Editor: Bridget Harney

(Image: Children running in Raqqa, 2019. Credit: Abood Hamam)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thank you for downloading this program from the BBC World Service.
0:04.0	I'm Lena Xinjab with a season of memorable programs about my home country, Syria.
0:09.0	Today, the many colors of Raka, about a remarkable photographer whose career spans a decade of civil war.
0:17.0	Hello, this is assignment on the BBC World Service and I'm Lena Xinjab, a BBC Middle East
0:27.9	correspondent born in Syria but now working in Lebanon.
0:32.4	For the final edition of assignment in this season devoted to Syria and its 10 years of civil war,
0:38.0	Tim Hewell has the untold story of a photographer whose career spans the arc of that past decade. A decade of devastation
0:46.5	and despair, but one in which some people have shown immense cottage.
1:00.0	He says like colors are now really beautiful. It's sunset. It's sunset. It's almost sunset.
1:02.0	We can see some blue sky getting purple and then the orange sun reflecting
1:09.8	on the green around me. I mean you could see my face is becoming orange and it's
1:14.3	really beautiful. That's amazing I wish I was there.
1:17.3	The Helen was Helen.
1:18.3	Oh I was here. Come to Raka. The Syrian city most people know only as the short-lived world capital of terror, seat of so-called Islamic states, now vanquished
1:35.8	Caliphate. Raka, the city maybe you didn't know of many colours. There's a picture here of brilliant green salad vegetables, lettices and huge curie
1:51.4	on d'oeuvres, strewn in the thin oozy mud of a winter street.
1:55.6	It looks like the aftermath of a bomb blast in a crowded market.
1:59.1	In this one an arc of shimmering droplets against a cobalt blue sky.
2:07.0	It's a father dunks his young son in the dark swirling waters of the River Euphrates. And here an ISIS fighter in black woolly head mask and slate grey tunic, black and brown
2:20.3	rifle trampling on a mountain of band confiscated cigarette cartons or glistening white,
2:27.0	the only bright thing in the picture.
2:32.0	All those pictures and many more taken by the man sitting under the tree in the
	...

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