Surviving Syria's civil war

At 18, Mustafa was told his only way out of prison was to join the government's fighters. After 14 years, as the Assad regime crumbled faster than anyone expected, he is caught between an uncertain future and a past that could get him killed

- Ghaith Abdul-Ahad

Mustafa was 16 when he was detained and beaten by the police for the first time. It was early 2011, and the first stirrings of the Arab spring had grown into anti-government demonstrations across the Middle East. In Syria, a sense of anxious anticipation hung in the air, and the government was responding with propaganda films and TV shows designed to fire up nationalist sentiment. A friend of Mustafa’s hired him to play an extra in one of these shows. The job didn’t pay much, but it was more fun than the long hours Mustafa spent working in a restaurant kitchen. Tall and handsome, with dark eyes and long eyelashes, Mustafa dreamed that maybe one day he could join the long list of Syrians who starred on Arab TV dramas.

The youngest of three brothers and a sister, Mustafa had grown up in a crowded working-class district in the eastern part of Damascus. His father was a stern and conservative cleric, who would beat his children for even minor infringements. At 14, Mustafa had run away and a relative in another neighbourhood had found him the restaurant job. On his first day at work, it took him four hours to peel a sack of potatoes. Within a week, he could do it in half an hour. He soon began working two shifts: mornings in the kitchen and nights making deliveries. He worked 20 hours a day. Looking back now, Mustafa thinks of this as the happiest time of his life.