Aziz followed the start of the protest from Lebanon.

When millions of Syrians fled to neighboring countries, the artist chose to go in the opposite direction and return to Syria.

“It’s my duty to come back here to support my family and my people,” he said.

“I am more useful to the revolution by being in Idleb than elsewhere.”

To denounce the crimes of the Syrian regime and its allies, he painted the buildings destroyed in the bombings.

“Painting is a universal language that everyone understands.”

In Idlib, everyone is continuing the revolutionary effort in their own way.

Until 2013, Abu Amin fought with different factions in the Free Syrian Army.

Wounded several times, he left the front to become an observer and help civilians.

“There is a gap in the protection of the population, so that motivates me even more, because I contribute to saving lives, I think that I am more useful by being here than by going to fight,” explains the man whose missions consist in particular of informing the combatants and raising the alarm when bombings or airstrikes are going to take place.

In this last rebel bastion of the Damascus regime, there are many, like Aziz or Abu Amin, who believe that the departure of Bashar al-Assad is still possible.

Like every year, on March 15, several hundred people gathered in Idleb square to demand justice.

See also Travel diary in the province of Idlib, the last Islamist rebel stronghold in Syria

More than 507,000 dead and more than seven million displaced

The brutal repression of this uprising, in the wake of the "Arab Spring", triggered a civil war which left more than 507,000 dead, more than seven million displaced and plunged the country into a deep economic and humanitarian crisis.

Gathered in the main square of Idleb (northwest) on Friday, demonstrators brandished the flag of the “revolution”, adopted by the opposition at the start of the uprising.

"Bachar, get out! Jolani, get out!", the protesters repeated, addressing the Syrian president and the leader of the jihadist group that controls Idlib.

“Our revolution is against everyone (...), whether it is Bashar al-Assad or Jolani,” assures Mohammed Harnouch, 35 years old.

The last rebel bastion is controlled by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), led by Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, who freed himself from Al-Qaeda and says he has banned its most extremist members.

Around three million people live there, many of them displaced persons having fled the regions reconquered by Damascus, with the support of Moscow and Tehran.

With AFP

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