'Leaving Aleppo will be the hardest thing'

A family wait with their belongings to be evacuated from Aleppo. Picture / Getty Images

The evacuation of civilians started yesterday. In the first attempt, pro-regime snipers shot at an ambulance carrying civilians and injured two volunteers from the White Helmets.

In the past couple of weeks, all the tools and equipment belonging to the White Helmets, also known as the Syria Civil Defence, have been destroyed.

We were not able to perform any rescues yesterday even though civilians were suffering so much. Knowing people need our help and not being able to give it is the hardest thing.

My last rescue operation was three days ago. I had a moment of joy when we saved a little baby boy - just 20 days old.

We managed to save his mother but his father and three siblings died under the rubble.

The baby is not safe yet, he needs medicine but there is none. He needs a father but now he has none.

When I saw the little baby boy pulled from the rubble I thought of my own son, Laith, who is just 10 months old. We had to flee our home four days ago when the regime took over.

We left everything behind, even Laith's toys. Laith needs vaccines and food. If I live it will be to look after him.

The White Helmets has been the first-response rescue team in Aleppo. Picture / AP

Whatever you see in the headlines, and whatever hell it is in this moment, I love Aleppo. I was born here. I studied here. I first fell in love here. I got married here. I watched my son be born here.

Aleppo is the home of our struggle for freedom and dignity, the most just of causes.

I want my son to hear about it, I want him to fall in love with it, I want him to know the story of Aleppo as the university of our revolution.

I believe what is happening here has never happened anywhere, it is a mix of the best of humanity and the worst.

I want to be the last person to leave Aleppo. As a White Helmet I have seen things that most people cannot imagine: burning bodies, children suffering from chemical weapons, weeping mothers.

I have lost friends and family members, but leaving Aleppo will be the hardest thing I have ever done.

We are being forced to leave. The destruction they will see when they allow media inside Aleppo will tell the story.

Each rock carries a tale of resistance and survival. I pray we will come back one day. Wherever I end up I will keep working for the White Helmets. Syria needs us. I believe in our mission and I believe in saving lives, not taking them. I hope one day my son will be proud of my story.