Holdouts in a Syrian ghost town
The sprawling, three-generation family of Mohammed Kale refuses to leave their home; a boxy, multi-story concrete apartment that holds the entire family.
The men want to stay back and fight. Their elder patriarch, 65-year-old Mohammed Kale, fears they will suffer in moving, penniless, from their home.
Two weeks ago, Kfar Lata had some 10,000 inhabitants, mostly farmers who had built concrete homes on its rich soil with carefully stashed money, bringing prosperity to a once-tiny hamlet.
Now, it's one of the many ghost villages that dot the Syrian countryside, abandoned by residents and ravaged as soldiers and rebels spread through the area in roving battles.
Many of Kfar Lata's residents now form part of the flood of more than 4.5 million people displaced within Syria, and more than 2 million who have become refugees abroad.
The Kale family lives surrounded by evidence of stubborn domesticity and war: a living room shelf displays a hand grenade and a vase of yellow plastic flowers, baby milk powder and medicine pills.
"If I am to move from the village, it will be to go to my grave," said the elderly patriarch, Mohammed Kale, leaning on his cane.
