Salute to the Syrian photographer, who rescued children instead of taking blast images

In war-ravaged Syria, journalists often face the dilemma of attending to their 'call of duty' or rescuing injured people after blasts.

Every day, we see images of dead bodies, including those of children, on television broadcasted from the war-ravaged Syria to our drawing rooms. The civil war in Syria has killed around four lakhs people since it started in 2011.

The latest killings in the country that shocked the world and led United States President Donald Trump bomb Syria after several children died in a chemical attack allegedly carried out by the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

In these times of unimaginable horrors striking Syria, a few acts of humanity and bravery are also reported from the nation. The latest hero of the Syrian war is none other than a photographer, who was caught between the 'call of duty' and 'service to the humanity'. He chose the latter.

The photographer, unlike his peers, decided to leave behind his camera to attend to injured and dead children after a bomb blast rocked Rashidin, west of Aleppo, and killed around 126 people, including 80 children.

Photographer and activist Abd Alkader Habak, who was present near the blast site and was injured in the attack, first decided to rescue victims, especially children, instead of taking pictures.

"The scene was horrible -- especially seeing children wailing and dying in front of you," Habak told CNN. "So I decided along with my colleagues that we'd put our cameras aside and start rescuing injured people."

After managing to ferry one severely injured child to an ambulance, Habak on his knees, wailed in misery, when he found another child dead and lying on the ground. "I was overcome with emotion," he told CNN. "What I and my colleagues witnessed is indescribable."

The images of Habak, running towards an ambulance with an injured child and later crying, have gone viral on social media.

According to CNN, the images were taken by another photographer Muhammad Alrageb, who was also a witness to the ghastly act. Alrageb too attended to the injured, but later decided to take pictures.

"I wanted to film everything to make sure there was accountability," he said. "I feel proud that there was a young journalist there helping save lives."

Here we bring you a few tweets hailing Habak's 'act of humanity' and condemning the horror scenes across Syria:

OneIndia News