Special Report: Fleeing Syria: A desperate migration

It was oddly tranquil up there on the roof of an obliterated commercial center in the Old City of Homs, once ground zero of Syria’s sanguinary conflict.

Sometimes he sneaks the old family photo down to his room because he likes it so much, even though it was taken long before he was alive, and even though it’s not his family.

Just after sundown, a woman peeks into Room 209. Fouad Wawieh and his family appraise her warily.

The lemons here are not as large and sweet, the olive oil not as fragrant, the parsley not as fresh as that plucked from herb gardens at home in Syria.

She woke before dawn in the cramped apartment in Istanbul.

The gray rubber dinghy that carries Huda Malak, pregnant with her first child, sags to sea level as it approaches Lesbos.