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Syrian Activist: 'I Could Be Killed At Any Moment'

A handout picture released by Local coordination Committees in Syria (LCC Syria) on Feb. 22 shows fire on the roof of a building in the Baba Amr neighborhood of the flashpoint city of Homs.
AFP/Getty Images
A handout picture released by Local coordination Committees in Syria (LCC Syria) on Feb. 22 shows fire on the roof of a building in the Baba Amr neighborhood of the flashpoint city of Homs.

The situation in Syria is one of desperation, death and constant danger, a Syrian activist told All Things Considered's Melissa Block.

The activist, who goes by Abo Bakr, said he was in the house where journalists Marie Colvin and Remi Ochlik were killed.

"We were hearing so many explosions around us, but then the sounds got closer until one rocket hit the backyard of the house," Bakr said. "Then rockets started hitting the roof, and that resulted in the roof falling down completely."

When Bakr spoke to Melissa, he was hiding in a two bedroom house with 20 others in the neighborhood of Baba Amr. He said snipers had been shooting indiscriminately.

"Now I'm sitting in this house and I could be killed at any moment like what happened yesterday," he said. "At any moment now a rocket could hit."

When Melissa asked him how people were surviving, Bakr said it was worst than living in a prison.

"People are surviving on the water they have in their houses," he said. "There is no food. No clean water. All we have is some light food. Sometimes we don't even eat. Yesterday and the day before I did not eat. The day before that I only ate onions and garlic."

Bakr told Melissa that at this point, the only solution in Syria is for an international military intervention.

"Syrian blood is so cheap," Bakr said. "More than 10,000 men, women and children have been killed. These are massacres. And then for two people, an American and European, there are many statements from Europe. This man and woman are good friends of ours. I'm not talking badly about them, but just look how cheap the Syrian blood is for the international community in general and the Arab community specifically."

As Mark reported earlier, a United Nations panel said it has evidence top Syrian officials "bear responsibility for crimes against humanity and other gross human rights violations."

"Our message to the international community is to provide humanitarian corridors for us here in Baba Amr," Bakr continued. "We have more than 500 martyrs in the last 20 days. This is a huge number. I don't just want to say they were killed, they were shattered by these rockets. You walk here in Bab Amr and foul odors are everywhere because of the body parts scattered here and there. There are many bodies under the rubble that we can't get out. The situation is very tragic. We demand humanitarian corridors for medicine and food and clean water. We just want to live as half-humans, not even full human beings."

Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Eyder Peralta is NPR's East Africa correspondent based in Nairobi, Kenya.
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