Kesh Malek Murals

In March 2019, the Syrian civil society organisation Kesh Malek painted a mural in Idlib of the journalist Marie Colvin who had been killed in Syria in 2012. The caption was a quote from Colvin made during the siege of Homs—“The words on everybody’s lips here are:

The mural of Colvin went viral, largely because the film about her life, A Private War, had just been released. Kesh Malek followed this mural up with others of similarly viral news stories: Alaa Salah addressing the Sudanese protests and Will Connolly egging Australian politician Fraser Anning, who Kesh Malek replaced with Bashar al-Assad. The photos proved hugely popular on social media, where the mural of Marie Colvin got the attention of Lindsey Hilsum, Channel 4’s international editor. The paintings were also mentioned by the media, including the Syrian website Enab Baladi, the Atlantic Council, and The Wall Street Journal. The mural of Salah was hosted by Getty and made it onto BBC Somali’s best photos of 2019.