‘When people tried to leave, Syrian forces killed them’: Reporter trapped in Aleppo gives a harrowing on-the-ground account of how civilians being ferried to safety ‘were hauled off buses and executed’
By WAAD AL-KATEAB
DailyMail.com
18 December 2016
Award-winning Channel 4 News journalist Waad al-Kateab, her doctor husband Handra and their 11-month-old daughter are among up to 40,000 people still trapped inside the ever-shrinking enclave of eastern Aleppo, where rebels are holding out against the forces of the Syrian regime and its Russian and Iranian allies.
They are holed up in the besieged district’s last functioning hospital along with a handful of other medical staff, a few dozen activists and dozens of the injured, many of whom lie sprawled across the floor in an extremely perilous state, some slowly dying.
Waad – who is seven months pregnant with her second child – and her neighbours have endured months of artillery shells and air strikes in the rebel-held sector and are desperate to escape.
Last week, she provided a searing eyewitness account of the brutal last days of the battle for Aleppo.
Here, compiled from her messages and reports, we chronicle the harrowing, tumultuous events from the past week, seen through her eyes.
She details how hope has turned to despair, amid reports of civilians being hauled off a convoy of buses taking refugees to safety and executed by Syrian and allied militia.
The Rest…HERE
