''Saving Syria's Children'' is a

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

Panorama A panorama (formed from Greek language, Greek πᾶν "all" + ὅραμα "view") is any Obtuse angle, wide-angle view or representation of a physical space, whether in painting, drawing, photography (panoramic photography), film, seismic image ...

documentary film A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...

with reporter Ian Pannell. The film's director, camera operator and producer was Darren Conway; the editor was Tom Giles. The documentary is an account of two doctors working in Syria, Rola Hallam, an

intensive care Intensive care medicine, usually called critical care medicine, is a medical specialty that deals with seriously or critically ill patients who have, are at risk of, or are recovering from conditions that may be life-threatening. It includes p ...

doctor and Saleyha Ahsan, an emergency doctor from London, working for the Hand in Hand for Syria charity. During filming in Atareb hospital in

Aleppo Aleppo is a city in Syria, which serves as the capital of the Aleppo Governorate, the most populous Governorates of Syria, governorate of Syria. With an estimated population of 2,098,000 residents it is Syria's largest city by urban area, and ...

on August 26, 2013, a ZAB-500

incendiary bomb Incendiary weapons, incendiary devices, incendiary munitions, or incendiary bombs are weapons designed to start fires. They may destroy structures or sensitive equipment using fire, and sometimes operate as anti-personnel weaponry. Incendiarie ...

was dropped from a MiG fighter jet on a school, the Iqraa Institute, in Urum al-Kubra, Aleppo, which resulted in at least 37 civilian (mostly child) deaths, and 44 civilian injuries, as reported by

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...

, documented by the

Violations Documentation Center in Syria The Violations Documentation Center in Syria (VDC, ) is a network of Syrian opposition activists whose aim is to document human rights violations perpetrated since the beginning of the Syrian Civil War, including victims of the violence, detaine ...

and later investigated and confirmed by

Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Headquartered in New York City, the group investigates and reports on issues including War crime, war crimes, crim ...

. The BBC crew filmed the incident and it was included in the documentary. The aftermath of the bombing and the reactions of those affected by it were also featured. The film was screened in Australia during October 2013 on SBS's '' Dateline''.

RT allegations and Ofcom complaint

The Russian news broadcaster RT accused the BBC of faking the chemical attack, resulting in the broadcasting regulator

Ofcom The Office of Communications, commonly known as Ofcom, is the government-approved regulatory and competition authority for the broadcasting, internet, telecommunications and mail, postal industries of the United Kingdom. Ofcom has wide-rang ...

upholding several complaints against RT. In a March 2014 broadcast, the station claimed the BBC had staged the attack for a news report and digitally altered the words spoken by an interviewee. The BBC complained to the regulator Ofcom about the allegation, saying the "incredibly serious" allegations struck "at the heart" of its obligations to accuracy and impartiality. Ofcom ruled that elements of the RT programme were "materially misleading". It also said the BBC had been treated "unfairly" by an RT programme called ''The Truthseeker'', as it was not given an opportunity to address the allegations before the programme was broadcast. RT's editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan said the broadcaster was "shocked and disappointed" by Ofcom's findings and accused the regulator of having "a peculiar approach to journalism".

References

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External links

BBC1 Panorama: Saving Syria's Children
BBC television documentaries 2013 television films 2013 films 2013 documentary films British documentary films Syrian documentary films Documentary films about Syria Documentary films about the Syrian civil war 2010s British films