Brilio.net/en - Once a prosperous heart of Syria, the city of Homs today has collapsed into piles of rubble and dust after airstrikes, artillery and rocket attacks. It is a bitter reminder of the brutal uprising against the President Bashar Al-Assad.
Yet last week, as ironic as it may sound, the ruins of ghost town Homs became the backdrop for a series of wedding photographs of a soldier from the Syrian army; one of the parties responsible in destroying the city, and his wife.
Hassan Yousef (27) posed in his military camouflage attire and combat boots with Nada Merhi (18), who wore a flaring white wedding gown, as if they were enjoying their happy sacred moments around the ruins of the sorrowful city that once a house of over one million people.
The photo results became a combination of greatly contrasting happiness and misery.
A photographer of Agence France-Presse news agency, Joseph Eid, said to the wedding photographer Jafar Meray that he wanted "to show that life is stronger than death while accompanied Meray and the newlyweds in the photo session.
The wedding photo shoot took place in the very spot where Assad's forces, backed by Russian airstrikes, laid siege to the rebel stronghold of Aleppo to the north. The offensive has forced as many as 70,000 people to flee to the Turkish border.
2016 JOSEPH EID/AFP/Getty Images