TUNIS, Tunisia
A well-known Syrian poet has said the Syrian crisis broke out because democratic revolutionaries were not supported.
The remarks of Maram al-Masri, who is an important figure in Arabic poetry and also a well-known activist, came at a recent poetry festival held in the town of Sidi Bou Said in northern Tunisia.
"I am against all dictators, whether they are called Bashar or Qaddafi," al-Masri said, adding that the Syrian war was not caused by revolutionaries, but rather "because democratic revolutionaries were not supported to come to power".
"In my poems, I try to focus on significant events, like a group of schoolchildren writing the word ‘freedom’ on walls, or people being killed in airstrikes while waiting in line to buy a loaf of bread," she said.
More than 220,000 people have been killed, and millions displaced during Syria’s civil war which has entered its fifth year, according to the UN.
