Just five years ago Homs was Syria’s third-largest city. More than one million people called Homs home, a place that was once an essential stopping point on the ancient road from the Mediterranean leading to India and China. Before the civil war began in 2011 and ISIS sieged much of the city, Homs possessed Syria’s largest oil plant and was the center for the country’s rails and roads. Protests against the government rose up in 2011 and by the following year protesters armed themselves and prepared to fully battle their government. Government military forces were sent in and the true destruction of Homs began. Innocent civilians were caught in the crossfire, trapped in their neighborhoods for fear of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and starving due to lack of food and resources. As the war raged on, the city literally fell apart.
Homs is the image of a wasteland. It appears that no one is left in the city because the streets are empty and the buildings are windowless and hallowed out. It is almost like the apocalypse ripped through Homs, leaving it as we see futuristic desolated cities in movies. While wars are raging it seems that the everyday people who make up a city are forgotten and cast aside so others can reach their agenda. The images across the internet of this dead city make it obvious that wars affect everyone, not just the soldiers, officials, and protesters. The citizens of Homs have been uprooted, displaced, and a myriad of them are now part of the Syrian Refugee Crisis. Their children do not know what a safe home is and will forever have the nightmares of war visit them in their dreams. Although I am not in their shoes, I can imagine all they want to do is go home. They simply desire to rebuild their lives and go back Homs.