Operazione Colomba

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Stories from the countryside. Hardships, deprivation and Rights

At the end of May it has been 8 months since we moved in Quseyr, eight months since we have a home, eight months since we started comprehending this country, this city, these people. Everyday we go deeper in the rooted culture, in the ideas, experimenting food, listening, having questions. Different places have different stories, people that lived similar lives, but never the same, and are now elaborating their pasts, each their own way. In the last period we focused our attention on the riff (countryside), starting a project a project of social-emotional sensibilization with the youths — that is not the topic of this article. It is a reason to meet other people, to talk, and create spaces to share. To keep solid the relationships we brought over from Lebanon and to make new ones. It’s all a way to be together, to share some time and space, to establish relationships. To listen, to stop, and let people narrate their stories. The story of Aisha is one that we know very well; she came back to Syria at the beginning of 2026 with her husband and their six children. It is a family that Operation Dove knows from Lebanon and since we live close by we frequently visit them.

Return

Diary of Agnese – 5

I am tired and I’ve had enough.
It’s still etched in my mind, the coexistence between life and destruction: the lit-up and modern shops on the ground floor of dilapidated and crumbling buildings.
They still leave a mark, the words of W. when she brings me to see her home, completely destroyed:
“It wasn’t enemies who reduced my home to this. It was the government...mine”.
It’s still etched, how the evil that man is capable of is in front of everyone’s eyes...walking through destruction you see every day how far the madness of war can go.
It’s still etched, the feeling that after all war did not completely win, because it’s not the end.
Hope is in the air.

From the ground

Diary of Agnese – 4

At 6 I’m woken up by the crowing of a rooster and the singing of the Muezzin.
The others are used to it by now, I was too when I lived here. But every time we start all over again.
Today I’m following the group in the local activities.
They are trying to organise some inter-religious communal moments in occasion of Ramadan and Lent, which this year overlap for a little while.
The Muslims will have their month of fasting, which we all know by now, even in Italy. The Christians have 40 days of penitence, which we’re used to see unobserved in Italy, but here are carried out by fasting from midnight to midday, and by abstaining from all animal products.
Syria really is big and travelling it’s not just the scenery that changes, but the ethnic and cultural geography as well.

Lights and rubble

Diary of Agnese – 3

Yesterday my suitcase, full of gifts from Syrian friends to their relatives, lost a few pieces, which reached their recipients, but immediately filled up again with something else to bring to those in Italy.
Today we leave for Homs.
Exiting Damascus, the bus drives by Ghouta, the neighbourhood literally reduced to rubble by the violent oppression of the regime.
That of the chemical attacks.
It’s striking, because it’s right next to the city, like a crude amputation that never healed.
Rubble, heaps of abandoned rubble.
Then a rocky desert, and behind the snowcapped mountains...poetic.

Looking Ahead

Diary of Agnese – 2

Today in Damascus I saw a Syria trying to raise its head to say how beautiful and how alive it still is.
T. is 30 years old, and tells me he came back after many years abroad. Years of diaspora to stay safe.
He tells me that not everything is going well, that many things aren’t alright, and that his
friends have much to complain about.
“But for the first time, I have hope in the future.
God built the world in 7 days, do we expect to take even less to rebuild it after a war?”. After years of desolation, looking towards the future, he thinks that tomorrow could be, and in that chance lies all of his determination.