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The sad tale of the laughing cab driver

How Moustafa Chamseddine used humour to help him and his fellow inmates survive inside one of Syria's most notorious prisons.

Moustafa Chamseddine was one of thousands of people who were disappeared during Lebanon鈥檚 civil war in the 1980s. For many years his family didn鈥檛 know where he was. Moustafa had ended up in Syria鈥檚 notorious Tadmur jail. But there, even torture couldn鈥檛 quell his spirits, and he used humour to help him and his fellow inmates survive their ordeal. Lizzie Porter went to meet Moustafa in Beirut where he now works as a taxi driver.

Image: Moustafa Chamseddine
Credit: Leila Molana-Allen

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21 minutes

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