MINATION

Earlier that day, a few hours before the attack on the children, I received some worrying news. Looking back it was a terrible portent. A cluster bomb had dropped next to M10 then rolled down a sloping passageway into the emergency room where, mercifully, it skidded to a halt without exploding.

Imagine the panic. The staff knew nothing of cluster bombs – they had never seen one – and contacted me to ask my advice. I knew of the indiscriminate devastation they cause, how they pose a particular threat to civilians but I have to admit I had to read up on them.

Little did any of us know that we would be dealing with their pernicious effects a few hours later.

The messages and photos came in fits and starts and, later, as I lay in bed in a state of anxiety, I wondered what was next. As a family, we found it an upsetting two days. For my friends in Aleppo it was simply the worst 48 hours of the war.

I was desperately concerned about them; they were working flat out for days on end, with no sleep and very little food. I have visited Aleppo three times since 2011 and I feel like a father figure to them; that’s why this is so painful for me. I love them – I wished I could have been with them.

Now, with M10 gone, they are scattered among Aleppo’s few remaining medical facilities. I heard from one of them a few days ago. He said: ‘After the bunker bomb… the air strikes became a little bit lesser. When the bunker bomb targeted the hospital we were there and 10 metres from it, but in a room under the ground. Thank God we’re still alive.’ People ask how I cope having previously suffered post-traumatic stress from my time in Syria and other conflict zones. How does it feel to be so involved? More than anything it makes me angry that nothing is being done. If you are not heavily emotionally involved in a situation, as I am, then you detach yourself from the horror; I understand that. But the West cannot turn away. A few days after the attack on the children, I visited British Conservative Party MP Andrew Mitchell and showed him the pictures. He was horrified. Tomorrow he will seek the permission of the Speaker to hold an emergency debate on Aleppo and Syria in the House of Commons. It’s heartening news. I am not political but wouldn’t it be wonderful, for instance, if Theresa May, as a symbolic gesture, were to visit Vladimir Putin and remind him international laws are being broken. It would show we care. Someone from the West needs to demonstrate clear leadership or history will judge us harshly. It will record we sat back – and did nothing.