Interview with Homs insider

Osama Abu Zaid, 21, is a citizen journalist from Homs’ Old City who smuggled himself into Jordan following a harrowing 40-day trip on foot for medical treatment. Abu Zaid’s hand was hit by shrapnel from a shell as he was recording video in Homs last July,and he has no movement at all in his left hand as a result.

Abu Zaid sat down at the Syria Direct offices in Amman with Nuha Shabaan to give a first-hand account of the catastrophic effects the Syrian war is having on his home city. Pale and thin, Abu Zaid said he and others still inside Homs have not seen any vegetables for more than a year, with people living off a flour-and-water paste and any other provisions as they are smuggled in to the city.

Before the war, Abu Zaid was a communications major at Beirut Arab University with a concentration in broadcasting. He has worked with several Arab news outlets to cover Homs including al-Arabiya and al-Jazeera.

He is a former member of the FSA’s Revolutionary Council of Homs, and is currently the spokesman for the “Syrian Council to Protect Citizens” inside Syria, a military and humanitarian aid organization that was established in 2012.