The Chemical Massacre in Eastern Ghouta: The Distance Between the Images and the Victims"The one consistent fact about the horrifying images that have come out of Syria over the past 21/2 years is that in many cases, we don’t know who made them and what they depict. All we see are decontextualized cruelty and misery. Cynicism creeps in, and there is a natural tendency to push the images away as a kind of insoluble puzzle.
The girl in the purple t-shirt is called Fatima Ghorra, three years old. The girl in the yellow t-shirt is her sister, Hiba Ghorra, four years old. The man is their maternal grandfather, Abu Hamza al-Sheikh. Their father is Nabil Ghorra, a medical doctor, and their mother is from al-Sheikh family. Fatima and Hiba have three sisters and one brother: Battoul, 16 years old, Rama, 15 years old, Muhammad, 12 years old, and Dania, 9 years old. Ghorra family resided in Zamalka. Nearly one year ago, the parents forbade their kids going to school, especially after some pro-regime teachers began showing up to school with their guns, and questioning 12 year old children on their political affiliations. Since then, the children spent most of their time indoor. In moments of intensified shelling, parents tried to calm down their kids either by lying on them or by holding them. At the beginning of this year, and due to escalating clashes and shellings, Ghorra family moved to the nearby town of Hazzeh, to return to Zamalka couple of months ago, but to a new apartment in Zayniya neighbourhood."