Abdul Baset al-Sarout

Journeys

Biography

Abdul Baset al-Sarout was Syria's most iconic revolutionary figure. A goalkeeper for the Syrian national youth football team, he became the singing voice of the Homs uprising in 2011 — leading protest chants that echoed across the Arab world. After the Assad government killed members of his family and destroyed his neighborhood of Baba Amr, he took up arms. He was wounded repeatedly over eight years of fighting and died of his wounds on June 8, 2019. He was 27 years old and never stopped singing.