Syrian exiles speak, five years into the war

 'University student Mais (29) found herself in the southern city of Deraa when the first major security crackdown took place on March 18th, 2011.

 “A lot of revolutionaries were in the streets calling for freedom when the solders started firing on them,” she recalled. That day, at least five were killed and dozens of others detained by security forces, never to be seen again.

 “The people woke up from their numbness,” she said. When her brother, an activist, was abducted and found dead outside Damascus in 2012, Mais blamed the regime’s security forces.  “I left Syria for Turkey because we lost my brother and my family didn’t want to lose me too. Also I’m a girl if they [the security forces] took me at that time I would be raped by them.” '