My hope is for Syria to remain in the news for happier reasons than in the past decade

In September 2015, the image of two-year-old Alan Kurdi’s small, helpless body washed up on the shores of Turkey shocked the world. The photograph prompted immediate global outcry for the Syrian refugee crisis, an increase in donations for refugee agencies, and, from my vantage point as a fresh college graduate, an urgent decision for many of those around me to volunteer at Greek island refugee camps, devote their early careers to the refugee aid sector, or otherwise help Syrians.

For weeks, months and even years, the image of little Alan forced attention to the plight of Syrian refugees. Why, then, does it seem like there was a black hole of public memory between the peak of the refugee crisis and the end of Bashar Al Assad’s regime on December 8, 2024? How did Syria go from headline-defining to largely forgotten outside the region except by those still personally tied to its daily tragedies?

In the early months of 2011, as the Arab uprisings were just beginning, the news cycle itself was undergoing a transformation with social media defining in large part what made the news. Live-tweeting was a prime news source, and anyone with a camera phone could influence global newsrooms’ daily priorities.

At the time, I was in my first year of university. I can still remember my mornings in a large auditorium, attending the introductory course “History of the Modern Middle East” and watching students and faculty alike react in real time to events unfolding before our eyes on phones and laptops. Almost as quickly as they started, it felt, the hope of mass protests in Syria turned into the horrors of bloody crackdowns.

Syria wasn’t alone – around it were other timelines in Egypt, Yemen, Tunisia and elsewhere. And closer to home for me, a left-wing populist movement called Occupy Wall Street was starting across many US cities, and the news was filled for what felt like ages with protest footage from around the world.

When I moved to Istanbul after completing my Masters’ degree in 2016, Syria was still a constant feature in the news, and helping Syrians was the centrepiece of local NGOs and a priority for many visitors. During this time, the conflict became more personal for me as I married a Syrian musician from Latakia in 2017.

As the war dragged on, as Syrians became more tired and as the status quo seemed to become more intractable, this attention started to fade. The Covid-19 pandemic was, understandably, the new focal point, but the national economies that were shattered were harder for people to relate to. Syria was one such example.

Opposition fighters tear a portrait of Bashar Al Assad in Aleppo, Syria, on November 30, 2024 EPA

Covid-19 changed daily lives of Syrians still living in the coun