SPECIAL REPORT The Bashar al-Assad regime responded with a mortar a minute right after Free Syrian Army targeted the regime’s checkpoint on the front line. They blasted back with another mortar round.

I was there, at that time, and I felt a sudden pressure, and after that came dead silence. We tried to hide behind the sandbags. I started to hear faint buzzing sounds, everything seemed to be moving in a slow motion.

Nervously, I looked at the  Free Syrian Army fighter by my side, who seemed much younger than me, not more than 20 years old, probably. “It’s okay. It’s fine. You are with us, you will be fine,” he tried to comfort me. I was surprised he spoke good English.

“I was a university student back then,” he whispered. And I realised I should not start my interview when the clash is going on.

The commander of some guerrilla group used to say they don’t take underaged fighters. In fact, you will definitely see very different stories in the front line. Boys of 15 and 16 smile innocently at the foreign guest, with Kalashnikov rifles in their hands and bullet belts around the shoulders.

It was my third trip to Syria this winter, a year after the Geneva II peace talks took place, with no positive outcome. The funding the humanitarian aid organisation received is decreasing rapidly, according to Syahrir Azfar Al-Halabi, the mission leader of Malaysia Life Line for Syria.

“The funding is decreasing due to lack of coverage, in comparison to the brutality happening in Syria, day by day,” Syahrir said. “The coverage is mostly about the extremist moves in Syria, and no longer on the bloodshed activities of the regime.”

According to United Nations statistics, more than 200,000 people have died in the civil war. Six million were internally displaced, four million have become refugees outside of Syria and more than three million children are out of the school... and the list goes on.

Snow started to fall during the first day when I arrived in Aleppo, currently the world’s most dangerous city and scrambled between the Free Syrian Army, Islamic State (IS) and the Bashar al-Assad regime.

The aid workers and I were told to sleep in a concrete building at the end of the day. It came with a small heater at the corner of the room. A fixer was trying to start the heating by using kerosene to burn dry wood. It did not work and at night the temperature fell to minus four degrees Celsius!

'Kenji Goto a nice man, freindly person'

                

This is the place we first heard of Kenji Goto, a Japanese freelance journalist who was kidnapped by IS in October 2014. Sheikh Muaz, a well-respected local commander, had met with the Japanese journalist a few times, when Kenji was documenting in Syria.

“He was a nice man, friendly person and we built a friendship,” Sheikh Muaz said. “I did try to warn him not to enter IS territory, but he didn’t take my advice.”

He had never heard from Kenji after that.

On Jan 20, a video of the kidnapped Kenji and another Japanese hostage was released. And on Jan 31, the world lost hope when IS released a second video, showing Kenji being beheaded.

The rise of IS had caused difficulties to aid workers and journalists. Turkey tightened its border policy, which requires the foreigners to obtain a permission letter from the Turkish authorities in their home countries before they can enter Turkey. This process can take a week or two. Things were much easier a year ago.

Moving around in the Free Syrian Army-controlled areas is not safe either. There still are risks of being kidnapped by spies or by some radical groups in the region.

Opposition fighters are fighting within themselves while their actual target is the regime. Lack of unity among the opposition fighters is one of the main reasons they are not able to make much progress in this war.

I met several youngsters who were forced to halt their studies since war broke out. A lot of them are starting to join the armed forces or are getting involved in aid work in the country. As the crisis goes on, people are starting to get exhausted with situation, with many moving out to find a better future. But things are not going to be easy.

Twenty-five-year-old Raed told me of his plan to continue with his studies in Turkey last summer. He decided to use all his savings to give a try in Turkey, but he failed.

“There are many young people who are finding ways to enrol in Turkish universities,” Raed said. “It is very competitive. I could not find a seat for my course, so I returned to Syria and continued working for my humanitarian organisation.”

Snow is topping the buildings which have been badly damaged in air strikes.

A harsh winter, with kerosene unaffordable

Winter is harsh for those remain in Syria. Not many civilians are afford to buy kerosene to keep themselves warm. Mattresses and blankets are scarce. Children are given sweaters by the aid organisations, but they are lack badly needed winter boots. Many walk along snowy streets, in their muddy flip-flops.

Not everyone who flees Syria can get a better life outside. I met a Syrian Palestinian refugee in Beirut, Lebanon, before this Syria trip. Mohammed Alkateeb, a Palestinian descendant who was born in the Yarmouk Camp in Syria.

“I fled to Lebanon two year ago and I am stuck here, unable to go home or travel to other countries,” Mohammed said.

“I am like my grandfather. It was 65 years ago when he left Palestine due to Jewish occupation and stayed in a refugee camp in Lebanon. They thought the war will finish in few weeks and they can go home. But it lasted for more than a half century and he never had a chance to go back.”

Mohammed’s father moved to Syria decades ago to find a better life and thus Syria is where Mohammed was born.

As Palestinian descendants in Syria are not given passports, they cannot travel out of the country. Yarmouk Camp has been sieged by the al-Assad regime and Mohammed is therefore not able to return there, nor to say Israel, the country next to Lebanon, as it is hostile to Palestinians.

The Syrian War enters its fifth year in March. Nothing much has been done by the international community to stop the bloodshed there. Hundreds of civilians are killed in Syria, every day. The international community should put more pressure on the defiant tyrant, Bashar al-Assad.

The Malaysian government should take a strong stand on this humanitarian crisis, one of the worst since World War II.

Unfortunately, the Malaysian government remains silent on this civil war, unlike the Bosnian War, of which Malaysia condemned the slaughtering of Bosnians by the Serbs and even sent 1,500 troops to Bosnia to serve as peacekeepers with the UN Protection Force.

Closing down the Syrian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur should be a first step to put pressure on the Syrian regime.

“There are still a lot of things we need to do for the Syrians,” said Aiman Amir, a staff of Malaysian Life Line for Syria. “I gave up my business to be thoroughly involved in this humanitarian work, and I will definitely stick to it until the war comes to end.”

CHRIS LAU is a freelance journalist.