Warning: video contains graphic imagery.
The deaths of journalists Marie Colvin and Rémi Ochlik this week highlighted the danger of reporting from the ground in Homs as the government continues to shell rebel-held districts in the city of Homs amid speculation that the informal “media center” from which Colvin was working may have been targeted by the Syrian government.
This danger is what makes this video, originally shown on the UK’s Channel 4, by photographer “Mani” all the more impressive. The video, which shows the aftermath of shelling attacks by Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s government in the district of Baba Amr and a terrifyingly close-up view of firefights between the Free Syrian Army and government snipers, also shows the effects on the the people who are not wielding guns: long lines for bread because residents can no longer travel to other districts in a city divided against itself, a family devastated by the loss of one of their own to a sniper, children living in a warzone.
Mani, face in shadow, was interviewed on Channel 4 for the broadcast of his footage. In the video below he describes the situation of the people in the district. “Civilians in those areas are like, under the threat of shelling at any moment and they cannot do anything about it. It just, there is no way of protecting oneself…The government forces are not only shelling FSA positions, Free Syrian Army positions, they are also shelling the civilians and the residential areas…they are consciously targeting unarmed civilians.”
