AN-NABEK, Syria — The "Peace Walls" project does not intend to beautify or underestimate death, or to disrespect those who are haunted by death. It is an initiative to say that in Syria, there are people who deserve life and want peace, and to avow that we will keep giving and constructing to create a better and more beautiful future for all Syrians.

This is how Amira Malek, the executive director of the Syrian Women’s Forum for Peace, described Peace Walls, launched on Oct. 1. The forum is civil society organization that aims at mobilizing local and international opinion to pressure decision-makers into adopting peaceful methods in their political dealings and building a democratic state. As a first project, murals were drawn on the walls of the cemetery in the city of An-Nabek in the Damascus countryside.

An-Nabek is a city with a Christian minority, located at the heart of the Damascus-Homs highway, about 80 kilometers (roughly 50 miles) north of Damascus. It fell under the control of opposition militants in 2012, after a year of peaceful protests and security clampdown, only to be transformed into a theater of bombardments and sniper operations. The Syrian army would respond every time the rebels carried out military actions or kidnapped a member of the army on the highway. The "city of grapes and harisseh" (a local dish) was the arena of murder and kidnapping until it rose from the ashes of war after the Syrian army put an end to the bombardments when it restored control over it in December 2013.