In pictures: The mobile barber of Idlib

For months, Syria’s northwestern Idlib province - the last major area of the country still under opposition control - has been the target of a devastating air and artillery campaign by the Syrian government and Russian forces. It is there, in the provincial capital, Idlib city, that 38-year-old Muhammad Abu Abdo runs his barber shop, named Salon Waer after his home district in the city of Homs (MEE/Muhammad Al Hosse)

Displaced from his home by the war, Abdo decided five months ago to start an initiative: every weekend, he and other barbers would visit nearby displacement camps and cut children’s hair for free. In a red puffer jacket, Abdo watches over his colleagues as they trim the hair of boys in a camp on 9 December (MEE/Muhammad Al Hosse)

Though he recognises that tidy hair isn't the most dire need for people in the camps as winter sets in, Abdo believes haircuts are a way to maintain a sense of dignity in the face of displacement, as nine years of conflict continue to send Syrians fleeing their homes. It’s not easy work - the group receives no funding. (MEE/Muhammad Al Hosse)

Abdo and some 30 other barbers visit the makeshift Kahatein camp north of Idlib city. “We have to secure our own vehicles,” said Abdo. Hundreds of thousands of Syrians in Idlib province have been displaced from their homes in recent months due to the bombing, most of them heading north towards threadbare camps along the border (MEE/Muhammad Al Hosse)

For some, a makeshift hair salon is a respite from poor conditions along the border area. “It’s been forever since I went to the barber,” one boy said, while a volunteer buzzed his hair. “Someone is remembering us, even if it’s just for a haircut.” (MEE/Muhammad Al Hosse)

More than 1,000 civilians have been killed in the onslaught on Idlib province since April, according to the UN. The largely agrarian northwestern region is home to some three million people, many of them already displaced from elsewhere in Syria (MEE/Muhammad Al Hosse)

As a rainstorm set in during Monday’s visit to the camp, the barbers and children moved into a nearby tent for cover. Umm Hassan, who lives in the camp with her six children, holds her youngest, one-year-old Ali, as a barber gives him a buzzcut (MEE/Muhammad Al Hosse)

Ali’s father died in recent weeks when an air strike hit their home village in the countryside east of Idlib city, leaving the family without a source of income. “There’s no salon in the camp,” says his mother, Um Hassan. There are villages nearby, but she doesn’t have any transport to get there. “Even if I did, a haircut would be costly.” (MEE/Muhammad Al Hosse)

Seven-month-old twins are taken back to their family’s tent after haircuts, carried by their uncle and cousin. Their father was killed last month in an air strike, their uncle explains, while he had been out shopping in their hometown’s local market (MEE/Muhammad Al Hosse)