Lower thirds:

00:03 Report by / Mohamad Chreyteh
00:38 Maya Nasser / Survivor
02:21 Maya Nasser / Survivor
03:03 Mohamad Chreyteh / DW Middle East Correspondent

Script:

In the narrow streets of the al-Qosour neighbourhood, grief hangs in the air.
Maya Nasser lost both her father and uncle during mass killings carried out when pro-government fighters attacked the area.
 
Beneath her family’s apartment, she shows me the spot where she says they were shot dead.

She’s planted a bush there in their memory.
 
+++ Maya Nasser, 25, Survivor +++ 
"These are the marks of the bullets that they fired while shouting at us to get down… Look here and there. I knew that they had killed my father, yet I still ran down the stairs to check on him, and I found both my father and my uncle right here. I cried and screamed, and I don’t remember what else I did… That is what happened."
 
For months afterwards, Maya says, she couldn’t leave her room.
She describes feeling trapped by shock, and an inability to grieve.
 
But today, she volunteers with a local initiative known as YAMMI -
a grassroots effort founded by community members to support the children of those who were killed.

+++ Maya Nasser, 25, Survivor +++
"We're preparing games and activities for the children at the community centre and we will distribute these presents."
 
YAMMI, which also means “mother” in Arabic,
carries the initials of Youssef, Marah, and Yoorob
three young Alawite graduates from the neighbourhood. They were preparing for medical school before they were killed in March.
 
+++ Maya Nasser, 25, Survivor +++
"YAMMI made me feel alive again, and it was the reason I was able to leave the house once more. It helped me reflect on how to be present and offer support to others, especially at a time when I felt extremely vulnerable."

Two of her friends whose fathers were also killed that day, volunteer with Maya. Despite the new meaning she’s found in the work, she says she has little faith left in the country or the new government.

+++ Maya Nasser, 25, Survivor +++
"I wanted to leave long ago. I stayed only to be with my father—I was very attached to him. He kept urging me to go, telling me we had relatives in Germany who could host me. But I refused to leave on my own. Now, it’s different. I’ll leave everything behind the first chance I get."
 
Signs of what happened in this neighbourhood on March 7 and 8 are still visible.
Survivors say nearly every family in the area lost someone.
 
+++ PTC: Mohamad Chreyteh – DW Middle East Correspondent +++
"Behind me is a newly built burial site for what locals describe as victims of the atrocities. Residents here tell me that nearly a thousand people were killed in the al-Qosour neighbourhood alone. Most of them, were laid to rest in this mass grave — among them Marah, Youssef, and Yoorob."
 
The volunteers at Yammi are honouring those three young people - and all their own dead - by caring for the children who lost parents 
 
As the community here still struggles to grasp the scale of what was done to them, some like Maya focus on the small things they can do.

END