Western media focuses heavily on the experiences of refugees who have fled the war torn country, but a staggering amount of people have chosen to stay behind. War has certainly altered what life looks like in different cities throughout the country, but in some capacity, markets are still open, and people must complete the same chores and errands.

People choose to stay for a variety of reasons. They may lack the funds or papers to travel elsewhere, may not personally be impacted by the civil war, or simply may not desire to leave the country that they call home--while conditions resulting from the detrimental civil war were less than acceptable in most places, many people would rather accept the reality of war than the unknown of life in a refugee camp or as an internally displaced person, living in an area that they were not familiar with. There was no right decision as to how civilians should have reacted to the presence of civil war and regular violence in their home, but the decision to stay behind certainly brings its own challenges.

For those civilians who chose to leave their homes, yet still remain within the border of the country, a term dubbed Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), life objectively remains the most difficult. Despite still leaving their houses, jobs, and many possessions behind, IDPs lack the legal protections and small benefits that the people who chose to physically leave Syria and become refugees obtained. As the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) put it, whereas refugees and their basic human rights are protected by the UNHCR in lieu of their foreign government, IDPs still fall under their state's domain, and thus must abide by the rules, even the corrupt or unjust rules, that they have put in place. Despite fleeing from the violence that Bashar al-Assad had inflicted on their families and their communities, IDPs must still respect the government which he has in place and the regime in power, or risk the punishments outlined by law.