For the past two months international attention has been focused on the heroic battle going on in Kobane in northern Syria, where the forces of the Kurdish People’s Protection Brigades (YPG) and the Free Syrian Army have successfully withstood an onslaught by the brutal ISIS organisation.
But Syria is a country with many Kobanes, as blogger Leilashrooms has pointed out. Across its length and breadth cities, towns and villages are fighting for their lives – against ISIS, against the equally brutal regime of Bashar al-Assad, and in some cases against both at the same time.
The Syria Solidarity Movement UK has launched a campaign under the banner of “Syria’s Forgotten Cities” to inform people of the realities of these ongoing struggles and to encourage support for their cause.
This site is part of that campaign. Here we will tell you the stories of three Syrian cities involved in these struggles – ALEPPO, HOMS, and RAQQA (the city which ISIS has declared its “capital” but where resistance to its repressive rule goes on). Just follow the links at the top of this page.
But there is a much longer roll of honour – Daraa, Daraya, Deir Ez-Zour, Douma, Hama, Jobar, Idlib, Yarmouk, Zamalka (to name a few) – places battered but not beaten, and where the fight for freedom and dignity goes on.
Let us remember all those “forgotten cities” in the coming weeks and do whatever we can to support their struggles.
