“We are in the Middle East and in the Middle Ages,” said Firas Abdullah, 24, a photographer and media activist from the Ghouta Media Center in Douma, rural Damascus. “People take the wood from trees directly to warm up next to the fire, and they don’t have enough food to feed themselves. We eat what we find.” In October, Abdullah started a media campaign to inform the international community about the four-year siege on Eastern Ghouta, which has led to death and starvation. Children especially were the most vulnerable victims of the cruel siege. Douma and the neighboring villages are continuously subjected to bombs and missiles from the government forces.

It’s a wonder that the 350,000 residents of Eastern Ghouta have managed to survive during the past four years.

“At the beginning — in 2013 and 2014 — many people were still cultivating the lands,” Beyan Rehan, 31, a member of the local council in Douma told Al-Monitor in a Skype conversation. “My uncle is still cultivating outside Douma, in the countryside. But even agriculture became expensive, and over time most of the people were not able to sustain it.” In 2015, Rehan, a former geography student, became the first woman elected to the local council, where she was re-elected last month. Among the 310 members, only two women won seats. Rehan became the coordinator of the women’s affairs office, working in collaboration with other women’s organizations. Throughout liberated areas all over Syria, local councils have tried to be a substitute for the absent government, providing municipal services, medical and humanitarian aid in the form of food and shelter, as well as media services and education when possible.

“We try to keep the agricultural fields in the southern part of Eastern Ghouta. But it is expensive. So we always need to rely on the only crossing available, which is the Wafideen crossing controlled by [President Bashar al-] Assad’s forces and which is the gate for the traders,” Rehan said.