Then and Now: 10 Syrians Recount a Decade of War in Pictures

In the northern city of Aleppo, retaken by government forces in late 2018, Ahmad Nashawi poses in front of his destroyed house - AFP
In the northern city of Aleppo, retaken by government forces in late 2018, Ahmad Nashawi poses in front of his destroyed house - AFP
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Then and Now: 10 Syrians Recount a Decade of War in Pictures

In the northern city of Aleppo, retaken by government forces in late 2018, Ahmad Nashawi poses in front of his destroyed house - AFP
In the northern city of Aleppo, retaken by government forces in late 2018, Ahmad Nashawi poses in front of his destroyed house - AFP

Samer became paralyzed, Bakri had a leg amputated and Rukaia fled to France: a decade of civil war in Syria has devastated millions of lives.

As the conflict enters its 11th year this month, 10 Syrians shared with AFP pictures of themselves before the start of the 2011 war, and recounted how their lives have been changed by the fighting.

Speaking from across fragmented Syria or even abroad, they give a personal account of a war that has killed more than 387,000 people and displaced millions from their homes.

In the capital Damascus, 33-year-old Samer Sawwan holds up a picture of himself standing on a beach in the coastal resort of Latakia.

That was before a bullet shot through his car while he was driving in 2011, sending the vehicle into a barrel roll that paralyzed him forever.

"I passed out with two legs, and woke up in a wheelchair," he says. "My ambitions and dreams have changed."

At least 1.5 million Syrians have suffered a disability as a result of the war, the United Nations says.

In the last major opposition bastion of Idlib, 29-year-old Bakri al-Debs rests on stone steps with one leg amputated above the knee, his artificial leg resting beside him.

The former medic holds a picture of himself in a similar position at university a decade ago in Latakia where he studied sociology, before he was maimed in what he says was a government barrel bomb strike.

In Idlib city, former opposition fighter 28-year-old Mohammed al-Hamid leans on crutches, holding a large picture showing him before the war in a military uniform and holding a weapon.

He says he was wounded in a 2016 battle against government forces in Latakia, where his brother also died in his arms.

That same year, he learnt that three other siblings had died in prison.

In 2017, warplanes bombarded his home in Idlib, killing his daughter.

Also in Idlib, Abu Anas, 26, holds an image of himself when he was 16 years old.

A native of the Damascus countryside, Abu Anas was displaced to Idlib in 2018 where artillery shelling two years later caused him to lose his eyesight.

In the northern city of Aleppo, retaken by government forces from opposition in late 2018, Ahmad Nashawi posed in front of his destroyed house.

The man in his fifties, once one of the city's most popular fishmongers, said his home and shop were obliterated in clashes between opposition and pro-government fighters in 2015.

The war has also flung journalists into exile.

Rukaia Alabadi, 32, arrived in Paris as a refugee in 2018 after escaping threats over her reporting about the reality of life in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor under ISIS.

Before that, the young woman had been jailed for months by the regime and accused of being a media activist.

The picture she shares with AFP shows her wearing a chador and a face veil in 2011 when she was studying economics at university.

Anas Ali, 27, has lived in France as a refugee since 2019.

Before that he was in Ghouta on the doorstep of Damascus until government forces seized it in early 2018 following years of bombardment and a devastating siege.

A citizen journalist, Anas covered fighting between both sides and in 2013 was wounded, sustaining face injuries, according to the picture he showed AFP.

In Iraqi Kurdistan, Dima al-Kaed, 29, clutched a memento of her graduation, one of the few belongings she kept after her family moved from Damascus and sold their home.

"I dreamt of changing the world, but instead the war changed mine," she said.

Life in exile has at times been tough.

Fahad al-Routayban, 30, works as a building concierge in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli.

On his smartphone, he pulled up an image showing him in uniform during his military service in 2010.

In the ravaged Palestinian neighborhood of Yarmouk south of Damascus, 70-year-old Palestinian painter Mohammed al-Rakouia stood on top of the ruins of his gutted studio.

"Nothing can make up for my losses," he said.

"My studio has been destroyed, my paintings have been stolen, and my colors have been scattered all over the place."



Morocco Mobile Desalination Units Quench Remote Areas' Thirst

Since 2023, Morocco has built some 44 of these desalination stations, also called "monobloc" -- compact, transportable units © - / AFP
Since 2023, Morocco has built some 44 of these desalination stations, also called "monobloc" -- compact, transportable units © - / AFP
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Morocco Mobile Desalination Units Quench Remote Areas' Thirst

Since 2023, Morocco has built some 44 of these desalination stations, also called "monobloc" -- compact, transportable units © - / AFP
Since 2023, Morocco has built some 44 of these desalination stations, also called "monobloc" -- compact, transportable units © - / AFP

In the small fishing village of Beddouza in western Morocco, locals have turned to the Atlantic to quench their thirst, using mobile desalination stations to combat the kingdom's persistent drought.

Since 2023, Morocco has built some 44 of these desalination stations, also called "monobloc" -- compact, transportable units that have come as a boon against the increasingly tangible effects of climate change.

The potable water is distributed with tanker trucks to remote areas in the country, currently grappling with its worst drought in nearly 40 years.

"We heard about desalinated water in other villages, but we never expected to have it here," said Karim, a 27-year-old fisherman who did not give his last name, gathered among dozens with jerrycans to collect his share of water.

Hassan Kheir, 74, another villager, described the mobile stations as a godsend, as groundwater in the region "has dried up".

Some 45,000 people now have access to drinking water directly from the ocean in Beddouza, about 180 kilometres (112 miles) northwest of Marrakesh, as a result of three monobloc desalination stations.

These units can potentially cover a radius of up to 180 kilometres, according to Yassine Maliari, an official in charge of local water distribution.

With nearly depleted dams and bone-dry water tables, some three million people in rural Morocco urgently need drinking water, according to official figures, and the kingdom has promised to build 219 more desalination stations.

Monobloc stations can produce up to 3,600 cubic metres of drinking water per day and are "the best possible solution" given the ease of distributing them, said Maliari.

For cities with greater needs, like Casablanca, larger desalination plants are also under construction, adding to 12 existing national plants with a total capacity of nearly 180 million cubic metres of drinking water per year.

By 2040, Morocco is poised to face "extremely high" water stress, a dire prediction from the World Resources Institute, a non-profit research organisation.

With coasts on both the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, the North African country has banked on desalination for water security.

In Beddouza, the population is relatively better off than those in remote areas further inland.

About 200 kilometres east, in Al-Massira, the country's second-largest dam has nearly dried up.

The dam has filled up to an alarmingly meagre 0.4 percent, compared to 75 percent in 2017, Abdelghani Ait Bahssou, a desalination plant manager in the coastal city of Safi, told AFP.

The country's overall dam fill rates currently average 28 percent but are feared to shrink by 2050 as drought is expected to persist, according to the agriculture ministry.

Over that same period, official figures project an 11-percent drop in rainfall and a rise in temperatures of 1.3 degrees Celsius.

As the country grapples with the increasingly volatile effects of climate change, King Mohammed VI has pledged that desalination will provide more than 1.7 billion cubic metres per year and cover more than half of the country's drinking water needs by 2030.

The lack of water also threatens Morocco's vital agriculture sector, which employs around a third of the working-age population and accounts for 14 percent of exports.

Cultivated areas across the kingdom are expected to shrink to 2.5 million hectares in 2024 compared with 3.7 million last year, according to official figures.

In 2023, 25 percent of desalinated water was alloted to agriculture, which consumes more than 80 percent of the country's water resources.

Against this backdrop, authorities in Safi were in a "race against time" to build a regular desalination plant which now serves all of its 400,000 residents, said Bahssou.

The plant is set to be expanded to also provide water by 2026 for Marrakesh and its 1.4 million residents, some 150 kilometres east of Safi, Bahssou added.