— Idlib (Syria) (AFP)
Thousands of fans in Syria's last opposition bastion have packed into a stadium for the frenzied final of a football cup -- an escape valve amid years of conflict and misery.
"I'm really happy today," said Mohammed al-Zeer, 28, from the northwestern city of Idlib. "Between the war and the destruction and explosions and the problems", events like a football match are "a great joy".
Syria's rebel-held Idlib region is home to about three million people, around half of them displaced from other parts of the country.
Many live in poverty, including in overcrowded displacement camps.
