Saving Lives With Tech Amid Syria's Endless Civil War

HOMES DESTROYED. BODIES WRECKED. FAMILIES RIPPED APART. THE BASHAR AL-ASSAD REGIME’S INDISCRIMINATE AIR STRIKES HAVE TERRORISED SYRIAN CIVILIANS FOR YEARS. NOW A SMALL BAND OF ACTIVIST- ENTREPRENEURS IS BUILDING A SENSOR NETWORK THAT LISTENS FOR WARPLANES AND WARNS PEOPLE WHEN AND WHERE THE BOMBS WILL FALL – GIVING THEM JUST ENOUGH TIME TO SURVIVE

- Daniel Gold

ON THE MORNING APRIL 11, Abu al-Nour* was lounging at home in a small town in Syria’s Idlib Province. It was a pleasant day, and his seven children – ages 2 to 23 – were playing outside or studying inside. The house was small, but al-Nour was proud of it. He had built it himself and enjoyed having family and friends over to spend time in the big yard. His wife was cooking lunch in the kitchen.

Al-Nour is a farmer, as were many of the town’s residents, but since the Syrian civil war started in 2011, fuel and fertiliser prices had shot up well beyond his means. Al-Nour had been getting by with the odd construction job or harvest work here and there. The area had fallen to rebel forces in 2012, and though his village was too tiny for the rebels to bother with much, he’d noticed fighters from the Free Idlib Army and Jaysh al-Izza groups passing through on occasion.

Being in rebel-held territory meant government air strikes. The bombings began in 2012 and got worse in 2014. Many villagers f led out of fear. Others fell deeper into poverty, their businesses ruined by the relentless conf lict. When the first air strike hit al-Nour’s neighbourhood, he says, it killed eight people from one family. Al-Nour tried to help with rescue efforts, but instead was overcome with grief, unable to move. Afterwards, he couldn’t stop imagining what could happen to his family. Finally, five long years into this reality, he heard about a service called Sentry from a friend. If he signed up, it would send him a Facebook or Telegram message to let him know a government warplane was heading his way.

Around noon on that day in April, al-Nour’s phone lit up with an urgent warning: a Syrian jet had just taken off from Hama air base 80km away. It was f lying toward his village.

He panicked.