Internet is hailing this Syrian videographer who saved a child instead of clicking pictures

world

Updated: Apr 26, 2017 13:29 IST

You are a photographer in the middle of a suicide bombing in Syria and you see a bleeding child. Would you wait and click an award-worthy picture, or help the boy? Abd Alkader Habak chose to rescue the child, breaking down at the end of the ordeal, and internet is hailing him as a hero.

The Aleppo-based activist-videographer was caught in the middle of a massive suicide attack on a convoy of buses evacuating Syrians from a rebel-held area on April 16. The attack left at least 126 people dead, including scores of children.

“I was just a few metres away when suddenly there was a massive explosion. My camera was thrown to the ground and I was thrown close by due to air pressure,” Habak said of the incident.

He searched for his camera and found it on the ground, where a child was also lying injured.

Devastating photo @AbdHabak - Syrian videographer next to the charred body of a child. 39 children out of 70 killed by suicide bomber #syria pic.twitter.com/u3KTNo6vRl — Ala'a Shehabi (@alaashehabi) April 15, 2017

“He was bleeding. So I ran towards him. I looked at him and he was moving his hands. I looked at his face and I could see he was breathing.

“This child was firmly holding my hand and looking at me,” he said.

Still camera in his hand, Habak picked up the boy, and ran towards an ambulance, which took him to a hospital inside the rebel-held area.

Habak, whose pictures carrying the child and later breaking down have gone viral on social media, described the scene as horrible, “especially seeing children wailing and dying in front of you.”

“So I decided along with my colleagues that we’d put our cameras aside and start rescuing injured people ,” Habak told CNN.

Other photographers present in the area captured Habak’s compassionate act, and the pictures have been shared thousands of times on social media.

“What I and my colleagues have done today is what inspires our humanity to those who were partners in killing the children of Khan Sheikhan,” Habak tweeted, referring to the recent gas attack by Syrian regime.