In Syria's starving Yarmuk camp, a pianist conjures hope

In the Yarmuk camp in southern Damascus, the notes escape a piano set in a scene of destruction and the children in Ayham al-Ahmed's little group sing of hunger and suffering.

The music in the Syrian camp, under siege for a year and wracked by violence, seems at odd with the brutality that is all around.

It is almost reminiscent of the story of Wladyslaw Szpilman, a Polish pianist in the World War II, immortalised in the film "The Pianist" directed by Roman Polanski. "I loved that movie, which I saw in 2007, but I never thought that I would come to embody such a character," Ahmed told AFP, contacted by the Internet.

In photos posted on Facebook, the 26-year-old plays the piano in streets littered with debris, his face growing thinner with each passing month.

Once a thriving neighbourhood home to 150,000 Palestinian refugees and Syrians, Yarmuk has been reduced to a shell of its former self in the conflict that began in March 2011.

Caught in fighting between rebels and the regime, just 18,000 residents remain, suffering under a government siege that has caused the deaths of some 200 people in a year, including 128 of hunger. "I weighed 70 kilos between the siege, today I weigh 45," says Ahmed.

Since the end of June, when a truce was reached between the regime and rebels, with approval from Palestinian factions in the camp, the siege has been loosened slightly. But the privations in the camp were so serious that Ahmed, who loves to play Haydn and eastern jazz, evacuated his wife and two-year-old son, both suffering severe anaemia.

Living without bullets

Under the circumstances, Ahmed's creation of the "Youth Troupe of Yarmuk" in 2013 was a rare ray of light. "It was important to emerge from the...