I first went to check on the mother, who was still buried under the rubble. I called her name and crawled beneath the concrete walls, but there was only silence.

We dug further only to find that she had passed away with her arms wrapped around the tiny bodies of her children.

Some days after returning to our neighbourhood, we noticed that a pack of stray dogs had come and taken shelter in one of the bombed-out houses next to us. Throughout the night, we heard them barking and howling loudly, as though they were fighting over something….