Feature: Life turns its back on Syrians amid war

Malek Juha used to own a big workshop for fixing U.S.-made autos before the Syrian crisis broke out. He was better off, bragging about his selective taste in fixing fantasy cars.

As the war engulfed his neighborhood in Jobar, east of capital Damascus, the 50-year-old technician found himself obliged to leave everything behind, even his "selective taste."

"I had worked as a technician fixing cars since I was 10. I used to have a shop in Jobar and my condition was good. But when the conflict reached our area, I had to flee," Juha told Xinhua.

Juha's big workshop has become an old Suzuki pickup truck, in which he keeps his tools. He always parks in the same spot in Rukn Addien district north of the capital.

"My life used to be great. My workshop was awesome. I used to have customers come from Lebanon. I also used to fix government cars, and those working in presidential palaces," he said.

"But now, I am on the sidewalk fixing any car with old tools in this old Suzuki, which was donated to me by good doers," he said.

"We were in haven, but now it's terrible," said Juha, a father of five, none of them works.

"Even though my life has dramatically changed, I am still grateful for at least being able to do what I like," he said.

"I used to make a lot of money, but now I work hard to just put bread on my family's table and pay the house rent," he said.

Juha was not the only one who opted to fix cars at the sidewalk. His cousin, Muhammad, has also been displaced out of Jobar for over two years and is also fixing cars in Rukn Addien.

"After I left Jobar, I came here and worked as a technician for someone here, but he mistreated me. All I could do was to come to this spot and make a living near my cousin," Muhammad said, standing next to his old blue Volkswagen minibus, in which he stores his gears and tools.

Muhammad also owned a store in Jobar. "I lost my shop and now live here on the street."

"When you have your own shop, you would feel different, you would be the master of your job, but here, I am on this sidewalk I receive a lot of harassment," he complained.

Even though he is still fixing cars, Muhammad said the customers have changed, in terms of the cash power.

"In the beginning, I used to have customers who would pay, but now people are financially dead."

The Syrian crisis, entering its sixth year, have also had negative repercussions on the social fabrics, even the very relation between a wife and her husband.

In Aleppo city in northern Syria, Andrea Yakobian, a 56-year-old photographer, said his wife abandoned him due to her frustration with the tough situation in that hard-hit city.

"I used to work for the antiquities department ahead of the war in Aleppo. My job included taking photos of the valuable antiquities for the department, but after the war raged, I started taking photos of some small diners and make them some brochures," Yakobian told Xinhua.

As his financial situation got bad, his wife decided to leave for Armenia to her family, taking their only son with her over two and a half years ago.

He was supposed to follow his wife a couple of months later. "But she called me and said she doesn't want me in her life. I don't know why."

"This crisis has created a gap between me and my wife, who is now reluctant to return to Syria or to stay married to me," he sadly said.

"My son and wife were everything I had got. Now I have returned to scratch, I have lost my family and my job," Yakobian said.

He said the people in Aleppo had no idea the crisis in their country would continue for five years, as Aleppo suffers from a chronic outage of water and electricity.

"With the lack of electricity, I have started searching for a hobby to fill my time. I couldn't find better than the books that were stacked in my home library. I have started reading book after book and I am trying to pull myself back together," he added.

Yakobian said the long-running conflict has made him lose everything, but made him be born again.

"The crisis may last for another five years, but my perspective of the future has not changed. I am not going to give up," the said.

Despite what his wife has done to him, Yakobian is still placing a family photo of himself, wife and kid on his reading-room desk.

During the civil conflict in Syria, the country has witnessed massive damage of infrastructure and houses, severe deterioration in public services as well as inadequate food supply.

Around 13.5 million Syrians require some form of assistance, of whom 72 percent have no access to drinking water and two million children are out of school, said UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Stephen O'Brien when he made a visit to Damascus last December.

The conflict has posed severe economic challenges for Syria as pointed out in a World Bank report, which described the economic impact of the conflict as large and growing.

According to the report, Syria's GDP is estimated to have contracted by an average of 15.4 percent for the period 2011-14 and is expected to decline further by nearly 16 percent in 2015.

Meanwhile, public finances have materially worsened since the start of the conflict with fiscal deficit sharply increasing and revenue falling to an all-time low. Serious inflation, sharp devaluation of the currency and dramatically reduced oil production co-existed in the war-ravaged country.

According to a World Bank report, the oil production in Syria declined from 368,000 barrels per day in 2010 to an estimated 40,000 barrels in 2015, leading to a big fall of oil revenues.

The impact of the Syrian crisis has gone far beyond the country's borders. It is reported that 4.6 million Syrians have fled the country, causing massive refugee crisis with neighboring countries and Europe. Endit