AFP photographer Sameer al-Doumy returns home after he had to flee Syria in 2017 just one year before a horrific chemical weapons attack in April 2018 on his hometown of Douma, a rebel stronghold near Damascus. The 26-year-old award-winning photographer, who has spent the last few years covering the migrant crisis for AFP's Lille bureau in northern France, said it felt "like a dream" to be able to return. Douma was besieged by Assad's forces from the end of 2012, with Washington blaming his forces for a chemical attack in the region that left more than 1,400 people dead in August 2013. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES