During Syrian siege, siblings honed the art of improvised survival
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Syrian siblings Antoinette and Sobhi Fares remained in Homs’ Old City during the two-year siege. (Emma Abbas / For The Times)
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Sobhi Fares shows some of the greens he foraged for food in the ruins of Homs’ Old City during the siege. (Emma Abbas / For The Times)
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Syrians walk amid debris in Homs. (AFP/Getty Images)
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A masked gunman killed Father Frans van der Lugt on April 7 at his Jesuit residence in Homs. The elderly Dutch priest had welcomed all creeds and provided food when he could. (Emma Abbas / For The Times)
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Syrians returning to Homs carry their belongings. (Youssef Karwashan / AFP/Getty Images)
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A statue of an Orthodox patriarch, beheaded by militants, remains on the grounds of the Church of the 40 Holy Martyrs in Homs, Syria. (Emma Abbas / For The Times)
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Syrians return to a Christian neighborhood of the Old City of Homs. (AFP/Getty Images)
Foreign correspondent Patrick J. McDonnell is the Los Angeles Times Mexico City bureau chief and previously headed Times bureaus in Beirut, Buenos Aires and Baghdad. A native of the Bronx, McDonnell is a graduate of Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism and was a Nieman fellow at Harvard.