Abandoned Mansions and Al Qaeda in Amusement Parks: A Surreal War Diary

In this short film Vocativ’s Lindsey Snell’s chronicles her sometimes surreal time among the teachers, farmers, and civil servants whom the US is now supporting as they battle ISIS In Syria. Abandoned Mansions and Al Qaeda at Amusement Parks are a few of the things she saw in the Fall of 2014, as she and her team spent time with factions of the Free Syrian Army and civilians in and around Aleppo. They chronicle life in rebel-held territories three years into the brutal civil war. The mansions left behind by the rich who fled Syria are now military bases. Abandoned amusement parks are war trophies. Some schools are open, but they’re consistently hit with bombs by the Assad regime, often when students are inside. “The regime is clearly targeting schools. It’s in [Assad’s] benefit to keep the future generation illiterate,” a teacher tells us. Some displaced civilians have spent years in camps that routinely flood. In spite of the hardships, the Syrian people push on.