Black Thursday in Aleppo
After I left the hospital, I was taken to the Idlib countryside where I received medical treatment at the home of a doctor, before the editorial department insisted I be transported to Turkey for further examination. It was later established that just one piece of shrapnel was embedded in my foot. Al Jazeera management insisted I should return home to Jordan to recover. But after a heated exchange, they agreed I could remain for a short while.
In Idlib, as the opposition fighters managed to force the regime’s troops out, I ventured through green farms, mostly scorched, with a local guide for more than 9km. The scenes I witnessed were heart- breaking. My goal was an exclusive interview with one of the figures of the Syrian revolution, the man who made the famous outcry “I am not an animal, I am a human being; so are all those (Syrian) people” on Al Jazeera. His name was Abu Ahmed.
The interview also included some soldiers who had defected from the regime in various parts of the country, as the revolution entered its second year then. Al Jazeera’s management allowed me to return to the field a year later. This time, I was deployed to the eastern part of Aleppo. It was still being bombarded, but considered relatively calm compared to the past year’s horrors.
During this spell, I had the opportunity to meet people from all walks of life. Al Jazeera told the world the stories of unarmed people reeling under the brunt of ruthless shelling by its own regime. We, as journalists, are not only witnesses to these events, we are also part of them. We told the untold stories. We were the voice of the voiceless. We recorded history for posterity.
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