'My life is like a horrible movie': Doctors share harrowing stories from Aleppo
The image of five-year-old Omran Daqneesh, pulled from the rubble of his family's Aleppo home after it was hit by an airstrike, has given a face to the horror experienced by millions of people around the world.
Warning: Videos contain graphic images that some readers may find disturbing
Not only is Daqneesh's home city of Aleppo under daily attack, but the necessities of life are critically missing. After several weeks of a blockade, one road is now open to the area. But getting humanitarian deliveries through is perilous.
Dr. Farida (for safety reasons we are only using her first name) is an obstetrician-gynecologist working at a hospital in Aleppo with very little supplies. She tells The Current's summer host Robyn Bresnahan that there is "no days rest" for patients or neighbouring residents.
"My life is like a horrible movie here in Aleppo. The airstrikes are always bombing our hospitals and our houses and our streets and our schools."
Dr. Farida tells Bresnahan that she does not have all the medical supplies she needs such as antiseptics. She adds that medications are rare and when equipment stops working there is no one to fix it.
"We accommodate. We can't do anything else," Dr. Farida says on the conditions she's left working in.
The UN has been calling for 48-hour ceasefires to allow aid in. Russia and the United States have agreed to back the cease-fires.
Dr. Farida says that at times, some patients are injured when in her care.
"One day our patient after delivery injured her neck from glass, from a barrel bomb."
According to the UN, an estimated 300,000 civilians live in rebel-held neighbourhoods of the besieged city, Aleppo. Hundreds of doctors have been killed and there are only about 35 doctors remaining who work in the region.
Just one obstetrician can't help about 150,000 women.- Dr. Farida, obstetrician in Aleppo
Dr. Farida tells Bresnahan why she can't leave.
"If I go, the obstetricians can't work with all these numbers of women — just one obstetrician can't help about 150,000 women … This region has to have about 10 obstetrician but we just have here about two or three."
Dr. Farida says patients live in fear but it is the reality they live with, but there's no way out.
"Everyone here is afraid of anything and when they try to escape from the city, they can't." She says it's dangerous to leave but at the same time "living in Aleppo is very dangerous," too.
Listen to the full conversation including hearing from a doctor trying to get aid into Aleppo and a critical care physician who travels to Aleppo to provide medical support.
This segment was produced by The Current's Karin Marley and Marc Apollonio.