General News, 2nd prize
Douma’s Children
Abd Doumany
02 February, 2015
An injured child awaits treatment in a Douma hospital, following an airstrike.
As the conflict in Syria entered its fifth year, the city of Douma, the largest opposition stronghold in Damascus province, was subject to sustained bombardment. Figures are hard to confirm, but the Violations Documentation Center in Syria (VDC), an independent NGO, puts civilian fatalities in and around Douma at 1,740 in the first half of 2015 alone.
Medical care in Douma deteriorated significantly, as government forces put the surrounding area under siege and restricted supplies, according to doctors in the area in touch with Amnesty International. Local hospitals struggled to cope with casualties. The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said that government planes also attacked schools. The SOHR records Douma as suffering the highest number of fatalities of any rebel-held area since the start of the conflict in Syria.
Abd Doumany
Before the war broke out, Doumany was completing his medical studies to become a dentist, but he stopped his university courses in the third year after he participated in a peace...
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