A single mum from Dundee has spoken of her terror at being trapped with her three children in war-torn Syria.
Jannah Reid, 51, was raised Roman Catholic and attended the High School of Dundee, but converted to Islam after her first marriage collapsed.
While living in London she joined fundamentalist sect, the Salafee, and was pressured into marrying a Syrian adherent she met just three hours before the ceremony.
They moved with her son from her first marriage to a tower block apartment in central Damascus 10 years ago.
They had two children, Ridwaan, 11, and Hashem, 10, before her husband walked out on her.
The single mum is now stuck in the conflict zone because she needs the written permission of her estranged husband to take her two younger sons out of the country. He is currently living in exile in Saudi Arabia and doesn’t reply to her letters.
“Some days are worse than others,” she said: “I’ll feel trapped and scared by the bombing going on around me, but then the next day, the situation quietens.
“Yesterday, a small truck suicide bomb went off within 200 metres of the park my children were playing in.”
Rockets fired from Syrian army artillery batteries in the hills surrounding the country’s capital regularly batter nearby buildings.
Ms Reid, who works as an English teacher, has lost two close friends to the conflict and at least a dozen of her former students have been killed.
“I fret and cry daily about our safety and the lack of money,” she said.
“Every time a child is late home, I think they have been killed or held at one of the military checkpoints as they cross town to school.”
She still has family in Dundee and hopes to return to the UK with her three children however, the authorities won’t allow it unless she has the correct paperwork.
She said: “We’d all cry if we had to leave and we may have to once we can. But at the moment we’re stuck here because my two younger boys’ father is Syrian.”
She continued: “I need power of attorney from their father to get their passports stamped to leave the country.”
The British Embassy in Damascus was closed in 2011 and diplomats have told Jannah she can’t expect assistance to smooth her return to the UK.
Speaking to journalists yesterday, she said: “You need money to leave. I have none. Where would I store our belongings or do I just abandon everything?
“How could I move back to Britain, where I have no savings? Would I find a job?
“I’m terrified of not having enough money to feed my children or even that I might lose my children because of this.”
Meanwhile, she struggles to feed her sons as international sanctions and profiteering drive up the cost of living.
She said: “My rent has gone up 30% in six months.
“Bread and gas cylinders for cooling and heating it’s all three, four, five times more expensive than before the war. I’ve no choice but to work long hours just to stay above water. It’s frightening.
“I speak English. I’m a graduate. I can earn decent money for Syria and still I’m really struggling. I worry and cry daily about not having enough money to live. The sanctions are killing as many people here as the fighting.”