Among the female population which has been a direct participant in the war, there are military journalists, women, who from the very first day of the armed chaos in the country have risked their lives in order to receive news from the battlefield.
These are the girls who tuck their long beautiful hair under a protective helmet, wear heavy bulletproof jackets on their fragile shoulders and carry a distinctive press badge in order to gain access to places that are dangerous to reach.
These women have already made history in the Syrian Arab Republic as the country's defenders.
In an exclusive interview Sputnik spoke with some of these female journalists about why they decided to leave the peaceful life behind the front line and go to work at the center of the military operations.
Samar Abbas, who first entered the war as a volunteer in the armed militia to support the Syrian Arab Army and later on became a military journalist, believes that in this way she defends the honor and dignity of all Syrian women.
“I was provoked to join war journalism by the lies and hypocrisy of the media deceiving us. When the media published fraudulent pictures of mass demonstrations in Damascus, I immediately set off to these areas and took photos of the truth, so that people can see that there are no such demonstrations,” Samar said.
Samar further said that she went to the front of Eastern Guta and began to work side by side with her husband, who died in 2013. “His heroic death gave me the strength to continue his work and to cover all actions of our army on the other fronts. My only goal — death for the sake of the country, or reporting our victory,” Samar added.
Aurora Isa is another fearless woman soldiers jokingly call the ‘suicide bomber’ because she repeatedly goes ahead with the camera to literally capture a shot on the battle front. Aurora studied to be an ordinary journalist but at the beginning of the Syrian war, she realized that she could serve her country only as a military journalist and nothing else.
“When my brother was killed on the battlefield, it became my calling. I stood up in front of everyone and made a promise that I would go ahead and protect people with my weapon — journalism. Since then, I have always been sent to the front line together with armed comrades,” Aurora said.
Aurora further said that after everything she has seen in the war, she realized that, “Life is a road to dignity. Life can stop in one second and it is important what will remain of you on the pages of history.”
In addition to the civilians and soldiers during the war, Syria has lost many journalists. The most prominent one was the murder of a correspondent of the Al-Ihbariya TV channel, Yara Abbas, by a terrorist sniper. She was killed at the front in Homs at Al Qusayr. The terrorist shot her, despite the fact that she was dressed in a distinctive uniform which clearly showed that she was from the press.
