Abdul Rahman Ismael Yassin, a reporter for the pro-opposition Hammouriyeh Media Office, died from injuries sustained in an airstrike on February 20, 2018, in the rebel-held eastern Ghouta area outside of Damascus, according to his employer and the Syrian Journalists Association.
Yassin was hit by shrapnel from a barrel bomb en route to a hospital where he had planned to report on the effects of Assad-aligned forces’ airstrikes on Hammouriyeh, according to Abdulmonam Eassa, a freelance photographer for Agence France-Press (AFP) and the Hammouriyeh and Ghouta Media Centers.
The shrapnel seriously injured Yassin’s head and stomach; ongoing shelling prevented the journalist from being immediately transferred to the hospital. By the time Yassin reached the Hammouriyeh hospital, his heart had stopped and doctors were unable to revive him, according to Eassa, who was at the hospital at the time.
Eastern Ghouta had been under constant shelling, airstrikes, and rocket fire from Assad forces and their allies with hundreds killed and thousands wounded in the offensive, according to the London-based human rights group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
According to Eassa, Yassin had been working as a journalist since 2011 when the conflict in Syria began. The journalist primarily documented how the conflict affected his hometown of Hammouriyeh.