Homs , Syria ( CNN ) -- Dark-haired and swaddled in a white blanket , baby Fatime is just 24 hours old , the picture of innocence in her grandmother 's arms . But the world she has been born into is anything but innocent . Her mother gave birth to her in a makeshift shelter in the besieged Syrian city of Homs , the heart of the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad 's regime . Her mother , 19 , has no painkillers and could not sleep after giving birth , she said , still in excruciating pain . Fatime 's father does not know his child has been born -- a month ago , he left the wood-cutting factory that has been turned into a makeshift bunker . He was going for supplies and has not been able to return , his wife says . Fatime 's father may live to see her , but two great-uncles will not , her grandmother says . Both men were detained and returned as mutilated corpses . As she describes what happened to one of her brothers , her voice trembling , the grandmother grabs her head , wrapped in a black headscarf , and twists it to suggest a neck being broken . She shows a photograph of the battered body of her other brother , the state of the corpse horrific . Baby Fatime is one of at least two dozen children holed up with mothers , grandmothers and other relatives in this makeshift shelter in the Homs neighborhood of Baba Amr . Government forces have been shelling Homs since early February . The families in the shelter have found relative safety but little comfort . `` We 're not sleeping at night , we 're not sleeping during the day , '' one mother howls , clad head to toe in black with her face covered by a niqab , an Islamic veil showing only her eyes . `` The children are always crying ; the bombs are coming down like this , '' she laments , waving her arms for emphasis . They huddle in near darkness , some covering their faces as they speak to me , afraid of losing more than they already have if the government learns who they are . The room is filled with endless stories of death and despair . One woman says her son has been detained since the end of August . Another says her son also has been held a month and a half . A woman named Safaa says her brother and husband were killed when a round hit their home 10 days ago , but she can hardly pause to grieve . `` I have to keep going , '' she says . `` I have to live for my children . '' The families in the shelter survive on rice and lentils taken from a nearby government warehouse , but supplies are running low . Activists gather about two dozen children for the camera and lead a song against the regime . But the little ones are hard to comfort . `` My husband died on the first day of the bombing . They did n't let me see his body ; it was shredded to pieces . His blood is still in the streets , '' says Umm Khidir , one of the mothers . But her focus now is on her son . She says he is sick with a fever , and there 's no medicine . `` He keeps crying and saying , ' I want daddy , I want daddy . ' I ca n't bring his daddy back , '' she says , demanding to know why the world is not coming to their aid . `` What is the world waiting for ? For us to die of hunger and fear ? ''
Women and children huddle in a makeshift shelter as the Syrian army shells city of Homs . ` ` The children are always crying ; the walls are falling down , '' one mother says . ` ` What is the world waiting for ? '' another asks as her son cries for his dead father .