File:Maaret al-Numan gas victims.jpg


 * Photographer
 * Mohamed Al-Bakour, AFP
 * Source
 * 'The first thing that hits you is the smell' - Omar Haj-Kadour, Mohamed Al-Bakour, AFP, April 4, 2017
 * ''Mohamed: When I get to the hospital, a foul smell hangs over the place. I can’t quite put my finger on it. Children are lying on beds and medics are frantically trying to save them. It’s a small hospital in Maaret al-Numan, where I live, about 15 kilometers from Khan Sheikhun where the attack took place. They are putting oxygen masks on the children. It’s mayhem -- the children crying, the medics barking orders. I decide to focus on the children. To convey just how horrendous this crime is.
 * ''Mohamed: I take pictures of the children in front of me. They are dying and they are shivering -- from fear, from the lack of oxygen, from the effects of the chemicals. I feel helpless. There is nothing that I can do for them. This is a secondary hospital, it’s not equipped to deal with the really serious cases. The really serious cases are given first aid and taken to the main one in Khan Sheikhun, which has the equipment to deal with them.
 * ''I have an older brother, who has a two-year-old boy. What if it were him on the table in front of me? I tell myself to stop thinking such things. If I start thinking such things, I won’t be able to do my job. And my job is to take pictures. To cover this attack. To show this horrendous crime to the world.