Young Syrian describes fears for home city of Homs

Kinan, a 25-year-old Syrian student living in the Midlands, has not spoken to his parents for 25 days.

Since international communication has been cut off to Homs, he spends most of his time on sites like YouTube and Facebook to find out what's going on.

He says at times it feels like a nightmare.

"Every day I watch people dying in Homs and I am afraid to see names I know," he says.

He found out by accident that his family home had been destroyed when his friend sent him YouTube footage of his neighbourhood.

Kinan could not get hold of his parents for three days after and feared the worst.

"It was shocking to see my house hit by missiles," he admitted. "I thought my parents were dead but I tried to put it out of my mind."

His family has now escaped to his uncle's basement in another part of town having taken only a laptop, money and the clothes they were wearing. They haven't been back to their house since.

Kinan has since come across worse footage on YouTube.

Two weeks ago, while watching a news report, he found out that a close friend, 19-year-old Abudi, had been killed. He had been helping out in the local hospital.

"We used to play football together. I cannot imagine going home and not seeing him," said Kinan.

Homs was one of the first cities to join the uprising against the government and has been one of the cities hardest hit by the violence.

Kinan, who visited the city last year, describes it as a beautiful place but says it has now been completely destroyed by government forces.

"I used to go out with my friends every night and we played football together every weekend but it will take five to 10 years to get Homs to what it was."

World leaders have refused to launch an attack on Syria but the US and France are leading efforts to draft a new UN Security Council resolution on the crisis, calling for an end to violence and access for aid.

Kinan says he would like the international community to do more to stop the killing against civilians.

He said: "You can see people dying online every day and people are saying the government should stop but they don't stop."