By Nayab Malik

When Yaser* found his friend’s mutilated body hanging by a meat hook on a nearby Syrian roadside in the spring of 2012, he knew the war in his part of the beleaguered country had escalated. His friend had been kidnapped a few days earlier, tortured and then hung like a slaughtered animal for everyone to see, he said.

“The militants took him. They were fighting on the side of the [Assad] Regime. Some of my friends were in the opposition, and whenever they took one of ours, we took one of theirs. Except that we didn’t behave with their hostages like they did with ours,” he said.

Though he was not a part of the rebel group fighting in this area, Yaser sympathizes with the rebels. To him, the war in Syria is personal; his family lives back home in Western Damascus, while he currently resides in Doha, Qatar.

Yaser moved to Qatar in the fall of 2012 to study Islamic Finance at the Qatar Faculty of Islamic Studies in Education City. For Yaser, well made plans have never worked out. He planned to pursue Islamic Finance in the U.K. to supplement his Bachelors degree in economics and accounting, because he couldn’t find opportunities in Syria.

“My plans failed when the British embassy in Damascus closed down,” he said. The embassy suddenly closed because of the political turmoil in the country in 2011, including a series of kidnappings, bombings and takeovers by militant groups.

After the embassy closed, Yaser then applied to QFIS after a friend told him about the program.

“It was a coincidence, and a stroke of luck for me. I applied and got a full scholarship. And I came here. I couldn’t afford anywhere else,” he said.

Meanwhile the situation in Syria deteriorated. “The fighting increased in 2011. Groups of armies from Iran, Iraq and Lebanon started taking over territories and evacuating people. They also started to kidnap people,” he said.

Yaser lost one of his relatives when she was kidnapped while driving. She must have entered the wrong area, he said. At the time, different militants had claimed territories and set up checkpoints in their areas.

“One day she left the house to go to work, and we never saw her again. She was a mother of four. We heard rumors that they threw all their hostages in jail, but we had no news of her.”

Yaser doesn’t take the safety and security in Qatar for granted. He is working on campus so he can send a stipend to his family, something he could not have done in Syria since jobs in his field are virtually non-existent.

“There is no stable economy and the market has crashed. I couldn’t find work there,” he said.

His sister works as a teacher to support their parents in Damascus. She makes a small amount but continues to work because their parents are retired.

“I am so scared she might be kidnapped. Or she might be killed. They all might. But I know it has to be this way,” Yaser said.

His parents cannot move out of the country because they cannot afford to. “The only Syrian friendly place we can go is Turkey, and it is too expensive, even more than living in Syria,” he said.

His younger brother fled to Cairo, Egypt, in the spring of 2013 to escape conscription in the Syrian army. He would have had to fight for the regime, and so he ran.

“If he stayed, he would have been caught. Once your name is on the government’s list, they can catch you at any checkpoint in the city. A lot of people are suffering in the army; they want to leave, but they are made to stay forcibly,” he said.

He hasn’t talked to his brother in a while, and hasn’t been able to contact his family recently. He can only call them when they have Internet access, and that may only be during an erratic five-hour window per day since there are continuous power outages.

Yaser wants to graduate and find a job as soon as possible. He wants to pursue a PHD but is not sure whether it is the best decision.

“I need to work. My plans are now. I’m looking for job offers everywhere: anywhere I can make money and send it to my family. I don’t know the future, but I have hopes that it will work out for me.”

* Yaser’s last name has been removed for anonymity