Why this Syrian journalist stayed in war-torn Aleppo after her daughter was born
Documentary For Sama follows Waad al-Kateab as she documents atrocities and builds a family
This article was originally published on April 29, 2019.
Waad al-Kateab didn't fear death until her daughter Sama was born.
The Syrian video journalist and her husband were among the last people to leave the besieged city of Aleppo before it fell to the Syrian regime — and they were prepared to die for their cause.
"We knew that in each moment we will be killed, and we were happy for that because we believed in the revolution," al-Kateab told As It Happens host Carol Off.
"But after Sama, it was something like: No, we will stay in the revolution, we will believe in this, but we also want to stay alive. We want to have our family and bring more children and be here, and we want this good future for her to live in."
Al-Kateab tells her family's story — and the story of resistance in Aleppo — in the documentary For Sama, which premiered April 29 at the Hot Docs festival in Toronto.
She and her co-director Edward Watts joined Off in the As It Happens studio to discuss the film.
Hope and the Arab Spring
Al-Kateab was 20 years old when the Arab Spring reached Syria in 2011 and people took to the streets to demand the end of President Bashar al-Assad's dictatorship.
She was a marketing student at Aleppo University at the time, but her true passion was journalism.
"I always dream to be a journalist," she said. "My father and mother said, like, 'No, you can't be a journalist. If you want to be a journalist, we do believe that the next day we will be in the prisons."
So when the Syrian regime started using propaganda to paint protesters as terrorists, she knew it was her duty to document what was really happening on the ground.
"That's why I actually I started filming," she said.
For the next five years — through joyful family milestones and the unspeakable tragedy of war — al-Kateab kept filming.
A family forged in war
While others fled Syria, al-Kateab remained in Aleppo to document the resistance.
She made a home with other activists in a makeshift hospital, where she grew close to a charming young doctor named Hamza who shared her passions and values.
Together, they survived gunfire, airstrikes and barrel bombings, all of it captured through al-Kateab's lens.
They lost several friends, including Dr. Muhammad Waseem Maaz, one of Aleppo's last remaining pediatricians, killed in an April 2016 airstrike.
Watch: Remembering Dr. Maaz, one of Aleppo's last pediatricians:
But in the midst of the chaos, Hamza proposed, and the young couple began their new family against the backdrop of civil war.
"We ... decided together, Hamza and me, to be like, this is our life and we will live here forever," she said. "We want a baby to be part of the country."
On Jan. 1, 2016, their first daughter Sama was born.
'A very difficult decision'
The first year of Sama's life was also the last year in the battle for Aleppo.
But even as the violence escalated, al-Kateab and her husband did not leave.
"It was a very difficult decision," al-Kateab said. "Sama was the first thing that gave us the hope and [at the] same time ... a feeling that we are responsible [for] something more."
When the family travelled briefly to Turkey, Sama's grandparents begged the couple to leave the little girl behind when they returned to Aleppo.
"At that moment, we just felt that we are a family [and] should be together. There is something I can't really describe, I can't really explain," she said.
"We do believe that there's our destiny and there's our home and there's where we should be."
'Whatever the cost'
As al-Kateab filmed her daughter's new life, she continued to unflinchingly document the deaths of other Syrian children — including a little boy who succumbs to his injuries in hospital.
It was hard not to turn the camera away in that moment, al-Kateab said. But she kept filming — for Sama.
"This scene could be my daughter, could be me, could be Hamza," she said.
"This is the only thing I could do. I'm not a doctor. I can't treat anyone. And I'm not a fighter. I can't fight, you know. The only thing that I can do is just, like, to film — to document this because the whole world is watching."
It was just one of many devastating moments al-Kateab captured with her camera. Only a fraction of her footage makes it into the documentary.
"We were caught between this bind that, actually, you have to understand that an audience coming in from the streets of a Western city can only take so much," Watts said.
"But also ... we felt we had a responsibility to show the reality that you were talking about, and to make people see that this is what this war looked like for innocent people."
The Syrian regime took control of Aleppo in December 2016, and the family was finally forced to flee in early 2017.
"When we left, it was the end of the story," al-Kateab said. "We couldn't do anything more."
The family now lives in London. They can never return home while Assad is in charge.
- AS IT HAPPENS: Syria is 'our generation's shame,' says prof
- AS IT HAPPENS: One of Aleppo's last pediatricians dead after airstrikes on hospital
But as they packed up their belongings and fled their home, al-Kateab kept one integral piece of Aleppo with her.
She was pregnant again. Her daughter Taima is now 19 months old.
"This is the last thing I take from Aleppo was Taima," al-Kateab said. "I can really, really feel that I had two girls from Aleppo."
Written by Sheena Goodyear. Produced by Kate Swoger.