WEBVTT

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Can you tell us about the current situation in Syria?

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Well, Syria is divided under different areas of control.

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The Syrian government is taking back the control of many areas.

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We can say that today around 65-70% of the Syrian ground is under the control of the Syrian government.

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I was there three weeks ago and I was reporting in different cities in Syria.

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I was covering the front in Yarmou, close to Damascus.

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I was covering the southern front on the border with Lebanon and not far from Julan and from Jordan.

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And I was in Palmyra and in Homs.

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And, well, I could find very different situations in each city.

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Palmyra is a city that has completely been abandoned by the population.

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It was just freed three weeks before my arrival and I was one of the first known, like,

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known Middle Eastern and known Syrian people going there.

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And, like, I could find a city in which there is no population anymore.

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And I could see how the terrorists, the Daesh terrorist organization,

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was destroying the city in order to break every link between the future and the past of it.

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Homs is a city that has not been controlled by Daesh organization by many other groups.

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There were around 15 groups of rebels controlling it.

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They were all radical groups and they were giving big problems, especially to the Christian community.

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I was able to visit and I could report about the story of the Christian community that was oppressed by those people.

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Even when, before the war, there was absolutely no problem between Muslims and Christians in Homs.

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And the great majority, the biggest part of the city has been destroyed, actually not by the terrorists, not by the rebels,

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but mostly by the bombing of the government that was freeing, that was liberating those areas from the control of those terrorists.

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While Damascus, in the city center there is absolutely no, absolutely the war cannot be seen,

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but we could hear from far away the noises of the clashes happening in the suburbs of the area.

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And it was incredible to see how people in the city center were going out, were partying, were really happy and free,

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even if in, like, just a few kilometers from us the clashes were taking place.