Syrian couple pose for wedding photos in ghostly, war-ravaged Homs

A Syrian army soldier and his new wife have posed for wedding photos against the backdrop of the war-ravaged city of Homs, once the centre of the nation’s uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.

Hassan Youssef, 27, clad in his military camouflage and Nada Merhi, 18, dressed in a traditional white wedding gown, stood amid the rubble of the city for a series of wedding photographs by Jafar Meray, who wanted “to show that life is stronger than death”.

Agence France-Presse photographer, Joseph Eid, accompanied the newlyweds and Mr Meray on their photo shoot, which saw the couple embrace in the eerily empty streets and pose inside heavily damaged buildings.

Once called the “capital” of the Syrian revolution, a large portion of Homs has been flattened by the nearly six years of civil war.

The photo shoot took place on February 5 as Bashar al-Assad's forces, backed by Iranian troops and Russian airstrikes, laid siege to the rebel stronghold of Aleppo, north of Homs, sending as many as 70,000 people fleeing to the Turkish border.