Surviving a Siege - Syria

Bitter fighting and senseless death dominate the streets of Qusayr. As the UN meets to discuss the hopeless situation in Syria this shocking report displays the vicious reality at the coalface of the deadlock.

"Here is where the soldiers of Assad used to be," Abu Arab, a Free Syria Army commander says as he stands on a deserted street that is now just a pile of rubble. Only a few months ago Qusayr, just outside of Homs, was a busy town with 50,000 inhabitants. Now it looks deserted. As an important gateway for weapons, it has been relentlessly shelled by the army. The FSA has captured many tanks in the area, but many more remain, meaning that there is no end in sight to the bloodshed. The local hospital has no facilities and is full of wounded civilians. "We can't do anything in this hospital," the doctor says with dismay. A man whose back is peppered with shrapnel lives for only a few minutes after being brought in and so does an eight-year-old girl struck by a mortar explosion. The fighting is so close to the hospital that we see the windows blown in from bomb blasts and bullets can be heard whizzing by the windows. And as the civilian deaths mount up the desire for revenge intensifies, entrenching an already bitter conflict. "May God send somebody to shoot the man who shot you," one victim's relatives pray.

Adam Pletts