It had been a calm day so far in embattled Aleppo's Shifa Hospital, said
a relieved doctor. His face etched with exhaustion from just three
hours of sleep a night. Then a man burst into the cramped hospital
bearing the shrieking bundle of a 6-old-year-old girl who'd had a
machine gun bullet rip through her knees.

Months into the battle for Syria's largest city, civilians are still
bearing the brunt of the fighting under a daily assault of helicopter
gunships, roaring jets and gunmen and troops battling it out in the
streets.