Feature: 500 meters, long enough to keep families apart

"I haven't seen my parents for five years, even though they are only 500 meters away from me," said Nassar Juha, a Syrian mechanic who struggles to make a living by fixing cars on a sidewalk in the Rukn Addien district of Damascus.

The 40-year-old man is from Jobar, a restive neighborhood in the eastern part of Damascus, which was among the first districts to fall in the quagmire of the Syrian war and became a main bastion for rebels.

When war erupted in the Jobar district, Juha escaped to the safe regions of Damascus to start a new life for the family, leaving his parents, wife and kids behind.

"I used to have a beautiful life. I had a two-story house with six rooms. I had a big workshop and workers, but when the crisis erupted, I escaped from the shelling and explosions and moved to Damascus," Juha said.

At first, he could't find a place to live in the new place. But he found a job at a workshop in the city, and the only good thing was that the boss allowed him to sleep in the store.

After Juha was reunited with his wife and kids, he managed to find a very small house on the outskirts of Damascus, which is just several hundred meters from Jobar, where his parents remain.

After working for two years for his unpleasant boss, Juha said he couldn't take it anymore.

"He treated me like trash, and I couldn't endure such humiliation so I quit the job," the man said.

His wife sold some jewelry to get some money for a second-hand blue Volkswagen minibus, in which he stores his gears and tools to fix cars on a sidewalk.

Juha still often remembered the good old days when he had a decent life.

"I would finish my work at around three in the afternoon, go back home for a hot, delicious lunch and afterwards I would take my wife and kids on picnics till late in the night. I had everything. My parents lived near me and it was a blessing having my whole family near me," he said.

Juha's most painful thing is he can't cross that besiege line to see his parents.

Though just a few hundred meters apart, Juha's place and Jobar are like two different worlds, as Juha's house is located in a government-controlled area, while Jobar fell in the hands of anti-government guerrillas.

As Jobar is tightly besieged by the Syrian army, it is impossible for Juha to return to the district to see his parents, neither can the old couple leave the district.

"They are 500 meters away from me and I haven't laid an eye on them for five full years. You just got to believe me there is nothing more painful than that. I would understand if they were in another country. I would go visit them or have them come over to visit me, but this is an intolerable, indescribable feeling of weakness and helplessness," Juha said.

The story of Juha is not uncommon in Syria, where the crushing conflict has claimed over 250,000 lives. The prolonged war has deprived Syrian people of loved ones and kept family members apart, as some live in rebel-held areas besieged by government troops and others in government-controlled districts surrounded by rebels. Endi