Over the past two days, the BBC has been broadcasting special coverage of Syria focusing on the civil war there.
What do you miss about your house? Tell me about your house.
It’s big, always clean. I miss that clean. We don’t have a clean here. We are children. We play football, basketball. We don’t have no home right now.
Your home was destroyed in the fighting?
Yes. I have cried enough. Every day I cry. I promise. I swear. Every day I cry here. I swear that.
I’m so sorry. At least…
Don’t be. Don’t be. We are strong.
More than two hundred thousand people have now died during the conflict in Syria and three million have fled their homes, now refugees in other lands. One nation which thousands have gone to is neighboring Turkey. Our international correspondent Ian Panel is there. He spared the past three years reporting from rebel held northern Syria. As he now reports the armed uprising in the north faces overwhelming odds and could be close to collapse.
In a small classroom girls and boys grin and clap and stamp their feet to a familiar anthem for the happiness every child deserves. But they are no ordinary children. They are refugees from Syria’s war.
What was life like for the children in Syria?
There was a lot of shelling and the situation worsened day by day. At first it was one shell. That was normal. But then they used missiles. It was becoming worse and now fear grew as well.
So the children live as refugees in Turkey where they still sing songs about freedom for Syria. But the uprising their parents began looks close to collapse. It was the early stages of the revolution. After four decades of rule by one party and one family, people dare to call for change. I met Abraham in early 2012. We sat on a carpet sipping hot sweet tea as he told me he was a graduate in English literature with a love a Beckett and Shakespeare. He joined the Free Syrian Army, a loose coalition of military defectors and civilian volunteers.
They want just freedom.
What does that mean in practice?
The concept of freedom for the people--it is to do what they want, not above their law.
But the government had other plans. Like many opposition stronghold, his hometown was relentlessly bombarded.