Daraa was a long neglected provincial city in the farmlands of Syria’s south, a backwater in the eyes of the capital: poor, almost entirely Sunni Muslim and far from the more metropolitan and multicultural cities of the country’s heartland.
But in March 2011 it would be the first to explode against the rule of President Bashar Assad.
Assad’s decision to crush the initially peaceful protests propelled Syria into a civil war that has killed more than a half million people, driven half the population from their homes and sucked in foreign military interventions that have carved up the country.
From the first day of the uprising, Ahmad al-Masalmeh used to go to the Omari Mosque in Daraa to organise anti-government demonstrations that went out in central Daraa.
On March 18, protesters marched from mosques around Daraa.
Security vehicles charged, sending demonstrators running.
Outside the city’s main Omari Mosque, security forces opened fire with live ammunition, killing two protesters and wounding at least 20 others.
They were the first to die in what would become a decade of death.
Al-Masalmeh, then 35 and the owner of an electronics shop, was at the Omari Mosque that bloody day.
He had been helping organise protests, including bringing in people from neighbouring villages to participate.
“10 years ago on this day, we were back in the town of Daraa starting this revolution. We participated in protests. We helped bury the martyrs. It was the first cry for freedom in the Daraa,” he said from the Jordanian capital of Amman where he has been since 2018 with his wife and three sons and one daughter.
Over the next days, rallies spread, and the number of martyrs mounted.
When security forces fired on protesters toppling the statue of Hafez Assad in Daraa’s main square, al-Masalmeh helped carry away the wounded.
Eight died that day.
Al-Masalmeh had expected violence, but he had thought troops would just use tear gas and rubber bullets.
In this age, he thought, Syria’s rulers couldn’t carry out bloody crackdowns as they had in the past.
The events of that day continue to haunt Al-Masalmeh.
And even as he escaped Syria, he says he continues to feel for those still behind.
“We live. We put our head on the pillow and we sleep but we don’t sleep before we yearn for our families inside. We follow their pain and suffering. We follow everything of our families inside,” he continued.
Daraa province has come under a unique arrangement mediated by Russia, partially because of pressure from Israel, which does not want Iranian militias next door, and from Jordan, which wants to keep its border crossings open.
In parts of Daraa province, rebel fighters who agreed to “reconcile” remained in charge of security.
Some joined the 5th Corps, which is technically part of the Syrian Army but overseen by Russia.
In these areas, state institutions and municipal officials have returned, but government forces stayed out.
Elsewhere, Russian and government troops are in charge together in a watered-down government authority.
In the rest, the government is in outright control, and the Syrian army and militias backed by Iran have deployed.
The organised rebel presence gives a margin for frequent protests and expressions of anti-government sentiment hard to find elsewhere.
AP