For most people, words like airstrikes and missiles are just stuff they hear in the news. Gaza is just another name on the map, Syria is just a place with a civil war. But for someone like me, it was all reality. I had to live with it for several years.
In the early hours of Dec. 28, 2021, tragedy struck my neighborhood in Syria. Around 3:20 a.m., an airstrike hit Lattakia Port, less than one kilometer away from my home. At that time, I was still awake and getting ready for bed. My husband and I had just returned from a holiday party, so I was still feeling the excitement of the evening. It was a wonderful post-Christmas gathering. Even without continuous electricity, we sang, danced, and enjoyed homemade cuisine and local Syrian wines.

When we arrived home, I quickly uploaded photos and videos to my social media accounts, excited to share the events of the night. My husband and in-laws were already asleep, but I was still chatting with one of my best friends based in California. She saw a video I uploaded where I was singing an Arabic song I memorized in front of all my husband’s relatives. We exchanged LOL emojis, joking about how it took me a year to learn the song for the party. Just as I was about to say goodnight and put down my phone, I heard a loud bang, causing our bedroom doors and windows to tremble violently.

It took me a few seconds to react. It was not the first time I heard a missile or a bomb explode since I moved to Syria in 2017. A neighboring country, which I won't name, dropped missiles in Syria too many times before. Just earlier in the month, a missile also hit Lattakia port but it was only that night when I actually felt an impact large enough to reverberate through our building.

I quickly shook my husband awake and he woke up to our doors and windows still trembling. Not long after, I saw my in-laws getting out of the guest room with panic in their eyes. That was when I realized it was a serious situation that couldn't be ignored. My father-in-law immediately turned on the house batteries to power the television in the living room while I checked local news pages on Facebook. Some lights flickered on and sounds echoed from nearby houses and buildings, as if everyone was slowly waking up to the same nightmare.

Real-time posts on Facebook confirmed that there was indeed an aerial aggression on Lattakia Port with multiple missiles hitting the area. Storage containers were ablaze and firefighters were already on site trying to contain the fires. There were images of shattered glass windows, broken chandeliers, and cracks on the walls of buildings located nearer to the port. I saw a Facebook post from a Filipina caregiver I know uttering a desperate prayer to the heavens above, begging for safety as “rockets” were raining down on Lattakia. Another Filipina shared that all their house windows were destroyed because of the shockwaves from the blasts. 

As these scenes unfolded before my eyes, I couldn't believe what was happening. How could a night of celebration turn into sheer horror within minutes? How could we even go back to sleep, not knowing if we would be the next target? Unlike other airstrikes that happened in a far-away Damascus desert or mountainous villages, this airstrike was just too close to residential areas. The explosion site was a mere 10-minute walk from our house.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about how many more innocent lives would be affected by these attacks. Fortunately that time, there were no casualties or injuries aside from the material damage, panic, and fear it caused.
This experience is just one of the many tragic events that happened during my stay in Syria. Living there for almost six years opened my eyes to an existence that most people are fortunate enough not to see—war, death, and destruction being part of everyday life.

During those years, I have witnessed countless airstrikes hit different parts of Syria almost every week and heard missiles exploding too close for comfort. Stories of families losing their homes, loved ones, and livelihoods due to the war were “normal” dinner topics. For people in countries like Syria, dreams and goals take a backseat because the simple act of survival becomes the ultimate priority.
I personally had to learn how to deal with power outages, lack of water, gas shortages, and scarcity of basic necessities due to the never-ending sanctions civilians like us had to suffer through. In my last two years in Syria, we only had electricity for 30 minutes every six hours. That’s a total of two hours of having electric power in an entire day. Just imagine that.

It was a constant struggle to stay safe and alive, but it was also a struggle to keep our hopes up and believe that things would eventually get better. But the most heartbreaking part was realizing that while most of the people in Syria were living in constant fear and adversity, the rest of the world seemed to be indifferent. The media is always too focused on political agendas or unseating the current government, painting Syria as the “bad guy,” therefore its people are deemed undeserving of sympathy.

No one talks about the innocent civilians caught in the crossfire, no one talks about the children who are growing up knowing nothing but war, and no one talks about the people who have lost everything they had because of this conflict. It’s like the difficulties of the Syrian people are not being heard, or worse, they don't even matter. It was the feeling of being invisible, as if we were in an invisible, made-up war that no one cared about.

Whenever I was asked by friends or family back in the Philippines or other parts of the world why the airstrikes kept happening or why the sanctions were not being lifted, I wouldn’t really know how to answer. To this day, I still feel frustrated about why the countries behind these airstrikes continue to get away with it. Where is the United Nations? UNICEF? Any world organization or anything? Where? I also don’t know. These are questions I’ve asked too many times as well. Ever had that terrible dream where you kept shouting at the top of your lungs, but nobody could hear you? Life in Syria was something like that. 
It felt like Syria was just another news headline that people would scroll past without batting an eye. As if Syrian lives were disposable and the destruction of the country's homes and cities were just collateral damage.

It has made me question if humanity has given up on Syria and the only choice for its people is either to get out or learn how to live with it. I was lucky that, as a Filipino, I had the option to move back to the Philippines with my husband but not everyone has the opportunity to leave, and even if they do, it’s never easy. Where would they go? Who would take them in?

Given the ongoing situation in Gaza, I cannot help but feel sorrow. The airstrikes, the destruction, the chaos—it’s all too familiar. It’s a story I lived through, and many people in Syria are still living through. Just a few days ago, simultaneous airstrikes hit Damascus and Aleppo airports putting the two international airports out of service and causing deaths and injuries.

In sharing my story, I hope it becomes a reminder for all of us to extend compassion and empathy. What is happening now is affecting real people. They are not faceless strangers who deserve to have their lives taken from them. They are humans just like us. I hope we don’t turn a blind eye and instead, stand in solidarity with those who need it most.