livingdead
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Bustan al-Qasr is the last remaining crossing point between the rebel and regime-held sides of Aleppo. Snipers are rife and the atmosphere tense, yet hundreds are forced to use it every day to get to work, to study and buy food.
"Today, at about midday, I treated someone who had been shot in the arm," Sam tells me. "He was a child, they usually are. I think that the snipers are aiming for kids, just kids."
Sam, crouching behind sandbags at the Bustan al-Qasr crossing point, is the only doctor on hand to treat those targeted by the snipers.
He is 25, speaks in an urbane North American drawl and has humorous eyes twinkling above his surgical mask.
He is the son of Syrian exiles who settled in Canada. "I was in the final year of my studies to become a cardiac surgeon," he tells me.
But then he felt that he had to come here. Now he sleeps in a room in the field hospital where he works. And in his time off, he comes to Bustan al-Qasr to wait for the snipers to open fire.
The pavement he sits on is dotted with dark brown blood stains.
"On average I treat about 10 people a day, every single day, but Fridays are always the worst," he says. "Yesterday about 30 people were shot here."
Everybody reacts differently to the sound of the sniper's bullet.
When shots ring out, the sea of people in the marketplace parts as most people press themselves against the walls of the buildings - as if, somehow, that will save them.
read the rest here...
BBC News - Aleppo: A city where snipers shoot children
