Syrian women are struggling to provide for their families, a decade after crackdowns on mass protests devolved into a civil conflict that has devastated their country.
Hiba Mawas has had to juggle being a nurse and a single parent while surviving a war.
Mawas lost her husband to battle in Idlib five years ago when her son was two months old.
Suddenly she had to be both mother and father to her child, while working as a nurse for the Syrian Civil Defense, also known as the White Helmets.
The Syrian war started in 2011 when people revolted against President Bashar Assad amid a wave of uprisings in the Middle East that came to be known as the Arab Spring.
The protests in Syria, which began in March, quickly turned into insurgency — and eventually a full-blown civil war — in response to a brutal military crackdown by Assad's security apparatus.
Nearly half a million people were killed including her husband.
The conflict has wounded more than a million and displaced half the country's population, including more than 5 million as refugees.
Over the past year, the situation has been compounded by a severe economic and financial crisis and the spread of coronavirus in the country, where medical facilities have been hard hit by a war that left large parts of Syria destroyed.
Mawas now works as a nurse for the Syrian civil defense and medical group that operates in opposition-held areas, known as the White Helmets,
The White Helmets have enjoyed backing and received funding and training from Western nations and have been nominated previously for the Nobel Peace Prize. The Syrian government and Russia accuses them of cooperating with radical militant groups.
Her job is demanding but the burden on Syrian widows is high, says Mawas.
Mawas's situation is not rare.
According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, almost one in two young people in Syria have lost a close relative or friend to the war.
The conflict has killed or wounded almost 12,000 children and left millions out of school in what could have repercussions for years to come in the country, the U.N. children's agency said Wednesday.
Nour Gharib has lost both her husband and her eldest son.
Her husband tried to flee to Lebanon when war broke, to try and secure a better life for his family, but he died en route.
Her son was killed in an airstrike.
Gharib now lives in an abandoned school with her daughters and her youngest son.
She feels hopeless and doesn't feel safe, but has no other option.
In the last year, rebel-held Idlib province has witnessed a crushing Russian-backed government offensive that displaced hundreds of thousands and damaged dozens of clinics and hospitals.
More than 3 million people, many of them already displaced by Syria's 10-year conflict, live in the region including Gharib.
(AP)
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