The story of how Hajar Saleh, a 47-year-old nurse, spent fraught weeks tracing her grandson in a foreign country and many months trying to bring him home underscores the terrible plight of Syria's thousands of lost children and their families.
Pope Francis, in his strongest appeal to date on the conflict in Syria, on Wednesday called for an "immediate ceasefire" to allow for the evacuation of civilians.
Aleppo, Syria's biggest city before civil war uprooted half of the country's population and killed hundreds of thousands of people, is now the conflict's biggest prize. Opposition-held areas are now under total siege and heavy bombardment as President Bashar al-Assad's government attempts to deal a death blow to a five year rebellion.
Three Syrian families flown to Rome by Pope Francis are calling their trip from the battle lines of a five-year civil war to safety in the shadow of the Vatican a “miracle” journey.