NBC
News producer Ghazi Balkiz is traveling in northern Syria with NBC News
Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel. He took these photographs in
Aleppo within the past week.
Rebels
in Aleppo's old city sit 20 yards from Syrian army troops. The fighting
in these narrow streets and alleys has reached a stalemate with neither
side advancing or retreating. Rebels at this location told NBC News
that they were so close to the enemy that they sometimes talk with the
Syrian army soldiers.
Aleppo's
Dar Al-Shifa hospital stands in ruins next to the rubble of a building
that used to be next to it. Members of the Free Syrian Army told NBC
News that the hospital was targeted because it was treating anti-Assad
forces.
Rebels prevented NBC News from filming the outside of all
functioning hospitals in the city because, they said, the government
would use the images to target the buildings. They allowed NBC News to
film Dar Al-Shifa because the hospital was no longer being used.
A
nurse treats a Free Syrian Army fighter who had been shot by a sniper.
The nurse uses a head torch because there is no electricity in the
hospital. NBC News saw many wounded people being turned away from this
hospital and sent to other clinics.
A doctor told NBC that the
hospital was running low on all sorts of medicines, and had even
performed an amputation without anesthetic.
A
crater scars the yard outside a bombed school in Aleppo, Syria’s
largest city and commercial center. Some residents told NBC News that
the school was targeted by President Bashar Assad’s forces in an effort
to destroy all aspects of normal life and force people to turn against
the rebels. Other residents said that the Syrian army bombed it because
the rebels had taken shelter in it.
During past visits to Syria, NBC News saw evidence that the Syrian army was taking over schools and using them as temporary bases.
A
textbook with a picture of former Syrian President Hafez Assad, father
of current President Bashar Assad, sits on the ground amid garbage and
other debris in the schoolyard of the bombed school.
A
doorway stands in Aleppo’s Old City, classified as a world heritage
site by UNESCO. The ancient walls and alleyways of the city, once
renowned as a tourist attraction, are now riddled with bullet holes.
No comments:
Post a Comment