A Syrian mother has described in heart-breaking detail the horror her family has faced over the last five years since fleeing the war-torn country in search of safety.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4, the unidentified woman, who was a school teacher in her local town of Homs, explained how she had risked everything - including never seeing her children again - just to try and get her family to safety.
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Having described her family's escape from Syria, her voice cracked as she recounted the moment she feared she would be separated from her children as they fled from police between Macedonia and Serbia.
She said: “We were running across the borders and the police were throwing [tear gas] bombs on us. It was terrible, terrible. Through forests, crossing rivers…jumping across the fields… the fences.
“We tried to hold each other and run. We tried [to hold each others’ hands]. I was trying to push them [my children] in front of me. I said, ‘If I stop, if the police men stop me- it’s ok.’ I just want my children to be safe.
“I have to. I don’t want to [separate] them but I am obliged. It’s ok… just for them to be safe.”
Asked why she was so desperate to get to Europe and leave Syria, she said she simply had no other choice: “Where can we go? We can’t stay in the war. The president there will kill us and do something bad to my children… to my daughters. I can’t [even] send them to school.”
More than four million Syrians have fled the country amid the conflict.
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