ALEPPO: The bodies of seven children lie under fly-ridden blankets in the back of a yellow pick-up outside an Aleppo hospital, the latest victims of government air strikes on Syria's second city.
"This is all one family," says tailor Hassan Dalati, who survived the raid on Al-Sultan street in the heart of the city of 2.7 million people.
First, the body of the children's father, identified as Fawaz Hujju, is brought out on to the pavement outside the bombed-out family home, along with that of one of his children.
Moments later fighters from the rebel Free Syrian Army carry out the body of the mother from the shattered home, then those of the rest of the children.
A hurried funeral ensues at a cemetery in the east of the city. The 10 lifeless bundles are buried quickly and unceremoniously.
"So many children, it is a massacre," says a nurse in Aleppo city with tears in her eyes.
Nearby, in Al-Bab, an air strike killed at least nine people and wounded 17, with more unaccounted for beneath the rubble of levelled homes, doctors and residents said.
The 5:00 am (0200 GMT) air strike followed repeated overflights by military aircraft during the night, residents said.
"We were sleeping at home when the first bomb struck. I made a run for the door when a second blast buried me," says a barely conscious survivor, peppered with shrapnel from head to foot.
"My mother, father, grandmother and sister were killed," he says, fighting back the tears.
Two of his brothers, one a teenager, the other a barely breathing toddler, lie near him in a small hospital on the outskirts of Aleppo.
Doctors said that nine people, including four women, were killed in the air raid. At least 17 more were wounded.
Rescuers frantically comb the rubble with a crane looking for missing loved ones.
It was the third air strike in as many days on Al-Bab, a town the rebel Free Syrian Army seized in late July along with large swathes of Aleppo, Syria's commercial capital.
The army has since been pounding rebel positions in and around the city in what commanders had warned would be "the mother of all battles".
Aleppo lies less than 50 kilometres (30 miles) from the border with Turkey where the rebels have rear bases, and is regarded as a strategic prize.
Comments
Comments are closed.