Anadolu Agency staffers show support to Syrian infant

ANKARA Employees of Anadolu Agency on Wednesday held a demonstration in support of a Syrian infant, who has become a symbol of resistance against Bashar Al-Assad region, in besieged Eastern Ghouta. Holding the portrait of two-year-old Karim, who lost his mother and his left eye in an attack by Assad regime last month in Eastern Ghouta region, the staffers at Anadolu Agency’s headquarters in the capital Ankara expressed solidarity by clasping their left eye shut with their hand. Twitter users in Eastern Ghouta are also posting photos and using the hashtags ”#BabyKarim I see you" and "#EasternGhouta siege must end” to support Karim. An Anadolu Agency video on the tragedy of Karim and his family has also been widely shared on Twitter to promote solidarity with Karim. Ongoing regime attacks on Eastern Ghouta, a suburb of Damascus, are turning the lives of civilians in the area into an endless nightmare. Home to some 400,000 civilians, Eastern Ghouta has been under siege by regime forces since December 2012. The besieged area falls within a network of de-escalation zones set up in Syria by Turkey, Russia, and Iran in which acts of aggression are expressly forbidden. Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when the Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests with unexpected ferocity. Since then, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed and more than 10 million displaced, according to UN officials.