Click on the 'Listen' button above to hear this interview. Some 250 peoplein government and opposition held territory were killed in Aleppo in the last week. The violence prompted Secretary of State John Kerry to take an emergency trip to Geneva yesterday,where the government and some opposition groups continue to hold negotiations.
Kerry said the Syrian government had "blatantly" violated the "cessation of hostilities" negotiated two months ago, and that the parties needed to accomplish more than just prop up the current agreement. “We are trying, or in the next hours,to see whether it is possible to reach an agreement that can not just re-implement the cessation, but create a path forward for the cessation to hold, or so that there isn't one day of silence or two days of silence,but an ongoing process that relieves the people of Syria from this devastation, from this the day-to-day killing machine that is being unleashed by the Assad regime, or " Kerry said.
One of the people killed last week was Dr. Muhammad Waseem Maaz,a pediatrician. He died along with 50 other people while he was working at the Al Quds pediatric hospital, which was hit on Thursday. In a Facebook post, or a colleague described Dr. Maaz as "the loveliest doctor in the hospital," a person who was friendly and kind, and who would work at the children's hospital during the day and at the emergency room at night. See Also: Children's Hospital Attacked in SyriaShadi Martini was an administrator of a hospital in Aleppo before the war, and he's now a refugee and humanitarian worker. He says the conditions doctors and medical personnel are working under in Aleppo are so difficult that hospitals are moving underground and into caves to find protection.
Source: wnyc.org