“They call it the widows’ basement. Crammed amid makeshift beds and scattered belongings are frightened women and children trapped in the horror of Homs, the Syrian city shaken by two weeks of relentless bombardment. Among the 300 huddling in this wood factory cellar in the besieged district of Baba Amr is 20-year-old Noor, who lost her husband and her home to the shells and rockets. ‘Our house was hit by a rocket so 17 of us were staying in one room,’ she recalls as Mimi, her three-year-old daughter, and Mohamed, her five-year-old son, cling to her abaya. ‘We had had nothing but sugar and water for two days and my husband went to try to find food.’ It was the last time she saw Maziad, 30, who had worked in a mobile phone repair shop. ‘He was torn to pieces by a mortar shell.’ For Noor, it was a double tragedy. Adnan, her 27-year-old brother, was killed at Maziad’s side.
Everyone in the cellar has a similar story of hardship or death. The refuge was chosen because it is one of the few basements in Baba Amr. Foam mattresses are piled against the walls and the children have not seen the light of day since the siege began on February 4. Most families fled their homes with only the clothes on their backs.
The city is running perilously short of supplies and the only food here is rice, tea and some tins of tuna delivered by a local sheikh who looted them from a bombed-out supermarket.”
