Going Home to War

Short - 14 min

The Syrian war has seen the greatest mass migration of our time, as millions have been driven from their homes. But now another exodus is taking place: people are going back into Syria. Why are people going home, to war?

Xenophobia is rising as Europe strains under the pressure of over a million Syrian refugees, but few, if any, of those men, women and children wanted to leave their country in the first place. "I have no reason to stay here", explains Fatema, a Syrian refugee living in Jordan. Returning to the homeland, the extremity of the damage that the war has done to the country becomes evident. Fatema recalls: "Hrak used to be a thriving city. There were shops from one end of town to the other, on both sides of the street. Now it's all destroyed." This is not a choice to be taken lightly, but these people have decided it is better to live in fear of war and death than live as outcasts in another country.

FULL SYNOPSIS

CountrySyrian Arab Republic
Running Time14:00
Date21 Oct, 2016
ProducerClover Films
OriginalHD
Ref No6927

TRANSCRIPT

Making The Film

80,000 refugees live a difficult and thankless existence in Zataari Camp, just over Syria’s western border with Jordan. They fled war and death, only to feel alien and abandoned in another land.

In recent months, our team in Jordan, led by Sara Williams and Abo Bakr Al Haj, heard rumours that, in the dead of night, thousands were returning to their homeland.
The Jordanian authorities were keen to keep this exodus quiet, but slowly families came forward to let us record their plans to return and, using hidden cameras, we then film as they make the desperate crossing under moonlight, before being reunited with family members on the other side. They have chosen to risk death, because at least that death will be amongst friends and family in their own homeland.

Going Home to War

Making The Film

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