Sebastiano Tomada
Getty Images Reportage
Whoever Saves a Life
Aleppo, SYRIA. Whoever Saves a Life. June 2014. In a Bombarded City, Volunteers Save Lives and Risk Their Own:
More than three years after the start of the Syrian war, the country's second-largest city, Aleppo, is nearly a ghost town. Whole swaths of the city are abandoned and lie in ruin. The civilians who remain in the city live a life of fear and grief as their families, friends and neighbors are killed and wounded by President Bashar al-Assad’s campaign to regain control of the city. The latest wave of this attack brought with it an intense aerial barrel-bombing offensive. These crude, highly inaccurate devices can wipe out entire buildings and are often dropped in quick succession, presumably with the aim of targeting the men attempting to rescue victims of the first explosion.
Among those rescuers are the members of the Civil Defense team, who for over a year have been rushing to the site of Aleppo's bomb blasts. These volunteers were trained by organizations based in Turkey to evacuate the injured, clean up the bodies of the dead, and fight fires. What they are best known for in Syria and abroad are their dramatic rescues of survivors pulled from beneath the rubble.
Media coverage in Syria has dropped drastically due to the high risk and volatile environment Assad’s continued campaign has created. In the summer of 2014, photographer Sebastiano Tomada spent eight days in Aleppo with these volunteers, a tight-knit band of brothers who risk their lives to save the lives of others.