For residents, they provide a rare respite from the horrors of the country's six-year war.
The tables laden with food to break the Ramadan fast are surrounded by the crumbling carcasses of bombed-out buildings.- The meals are prepared in a makeshift street kitchen largely hidden from view by a swathe of red-and-green striped cloth hung around three sides of the cooking stations from a metal frame, like curtains.
- Main dishes quickly follow, filling the six tables that each seat around 40 people, with others in an overflow section on the street.
- They are topped first with orange juice and dates ready for residents to break their day-long fast as soon as the sun sets and the call to prayer begins.
- In recent years, such communal \"iftars\" or fast-breaking meals have been organised rarely and always inside buildings that provided some protection from the constant threat of government bombardment.
- The open-air meals are a rare treat in the town in the Eastern Ghouta region outside Damascus
The tables laden with food to break the Ramadan fast are surrounded by the crumbling carcasses of bombed-out buildings.
For residents, they provide a rare respite from the horrors of the country's six-year war.
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