A gardener who tended to Aleppo’s lost hopes of peace.
Abu Al-Ward—Father of the Flowers—and his 13-year-old son Ibrahim have been running a garden center in the besieged Syrian city of Aleppo for the past five years. Among death and destruction, the sanctuary is a subtle defiance of the everyday horror of war.
For the 250,000 people remaining in Aleppo, the quiet resilience of flowers sustains the memory of this once-flourishing cultural and historical city—one of the oldest inhabited in the world.
“My place here is worth billions of dollars!” Abu Al-Ward says, and he could not be more right, even if you could not put a price on a glimmer of hope and life’s elusive beauty.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.
Photo Credit:Â Ipopba
Fair Observer provides you deep and diverse insights for free. Remember that we still have to pay for servers, website maintenance and much more. So, donate now to keep us free, fair and independent.
