By Diana Semaan, Syria Campaigner at Amnesty International,
The collapse of the latest Syrian ceasefire agreement in recent days brought a ferocious escalation in the bombardment of Aleppo last weekend. At least 173 civilians were killed, predominantly in Aleppo city and governorate according to the Violations Documentation Center, an independent Syrian human rights group.
On Saturday, texts and calls from people trapped in the besieged city described sustained, horrifying attacks with an aim that could be summarized in one word: obliteration.
The most worrying call I received was from Ghina, now a mother of two after losing her third child in an air strike on Aleppo city a couple of months ago. The sound of bombing echoed in the background as she pleaded for help before the line cut off. I tried calling back but to no avail. I knew it could have simply been a network failure yet I could not help but imagine the worst; that she was killed in an air strike.
I later discovered that Ghina and her two remaining children were alive, but an air strike had severely injured her and destroyed their home.
The battle to win control of Aleppo has seen the governorate subjected to relentless bombardment by the Syrian government and its ally Russia. Time and again the Syrian government has attacked schools, residential buildings, hospitals and medical facilities but more horrifically the civilian population directly. The question is why?
Time and again the Syrian government has attacked schools, residential buildings, hospitals and medical facilities but more horrifically the civilian population directly
The Syrian government, with Russia’s support, has without a doubt used air power to deliberately inflict suffering on civilians, routinely bombing densely populated civilian areas and buildings. For several years, there’s been a clear pattern of government bombardment as a means of punishing populations in areas controlled by the armed opposition. But there is more to it than that. Over the past year, Amnesty International has documented a pattern of deliberate attacks on hospitals in the north of Aleppo governorate in what appears to be part of a military strategy to empty towns and villages of residents, in order to pave the way for ground forces to advance.
It is this same strategy that Syrian government forces are now using to gain control of Aleppo city. The city’s besiegement – coupled with the impotence of the UN Security Council and others – has empowered Russia and the Syrian government to attack civilians with impunity and leave only one option for Aleppo residents to escape the horror – forcing them to evacuate to government-controlled areas. Once the city is emptied of people, the government can seize control and claim victory. It did this last month too in Daraya, near Damascus, which the remaining inhabitants reluctantly agreed to completely evacuate after four years of brutal siege and bombardment.
Aleppo city resident Mayada* told me she is afraid to die but does not want to leave the city she has called home her entire life. Her neighbourhood was subjected to three aerial attacks over the weekend, despite being almost a kilometre away from the front line.
Another resident spent his weekend evacuating the injured. He said: “I was in the car about to evacuate another injured friend from an aerial attack on al-Mashhad neighborhood when I heard the sound of a warplane and then the window glass shattered on us. I heard a series of small explosions that went on for almost a minute. I waited for another 10 minutes before I drove to the hospital, which was a few metres away. It turned out that the bomb dropped was a cluster munition. More than 40 people were injured with shrapnel.”
Activists and residents of Aleppo city said that incendiary weapons as well as cluster munitions were used in the latest round of attacks. These claims could not be independently verified but Amnesty International and other human rights organizations have previously documented the use of these weapons in Aleppo and elsewhere in Syria.
Saad, a media activist in Aleppo city, refused to describe what he witnessed as his anger and frustration seethed. Besides the bombardment itself, he was irked by US Ambassador Samantha Power’s speech at the UN Security Council, accusing Russia of “barbarism”.
“We only hear statements, speeches, apologies and empty threats from the US,” he said. “The only solution they have for us [is] ceasefire agreements. I think it is very clear by now that this is not the solution that will save our lives; it is killing us every time it fails.”
Many Syrians understandably feel frustrated with the international community’s colossal failure to protect civilians from the horrifying abuses.
The appalling catalogue of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the Syrian government in Aleppo has caused bloodshed and human suffering on a mass scale for years, and its repercussion are felt well beyond Syria and the Middle East. But the world has failed to take action.
Speeches decrying the inhumanity of the ongoing war crimes are not enough
Ceasefire agreements have not protected civilian lives or ended atrocities. The UN Security Council has adopted a series of strong resolutions which, if enforced, could have halted, or at least reduced, attacks on civilians and sieges on civilian areas, and facilitated humanitarian access.
Targeted sanctions and an arms embargo could still give these resolutions some teeth. And a referral of the situation to the International Criminal Court could at least send the signal that those ordering mass atrocity crimes will face justice.
Speeches decrying the inhumanity of the ongoing war crimes are not enough.
Ghina, Mayada and Saad’s lives – and the lives of hundreds of thousands of other civilians trapped in Aleppo and elsewhere in Syria – depend on the international community finally doing something to stop further war crimes and punish those responsible.
Crucial facility in rebel-held district had already been bombed earlier in week in an assault described by UN chief as war crime The Guardian Volunteers carry an injured person on a stretcher following Syrian government forces airstrikes on the rebel-held neighbourhood of Heluk in Aleppo, on 30 September 2016. Photograph: Thaer Mohammed/AFP/Getty Images Link
The largest hospital in the rebel-held side of Aleppo has been devastated by barrel bombs, witnesses have said, as forces loyal to the Russia -backed government intensified their assault on the area with a major weekend offensive.
With M10 and the second-largest hospital in the eastern part of the city now both out of use, only six operational hospitals remain in the region, according to the Syrian American Medical Society (Sams).
“Two barrel bombs hit the M10 hospital and there were reports of a cluster bomb as well,” Adham Sahloul of Sams said.
The recent surge in attacks in Aleppo from forces loyal to the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, have been some of the worst in the country’s five-year civil war . More than 220 people have died and residential buildings have been reduced to heaps of rubble.
France condemned the bombing of M10, saying the shelling of healthcare structures and personnel in Aleppo constituted war crimes.
“Their perpetrators will be held to account,” foreign minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said in a statement. “France is mobilising at the Security Council as we speak to put a stop to this unacceptable tragedy,” he added.
The devastation continued as it emerged that the US secretary of state, John Kerry, complained to a group of Syrian civilians on the sidelines of New York’s United Nations general assembly last week that his diplomacy had not been backed by a serious threat of military force.
Russia appeared to respond to the reports, based on an audio recording of the meeting obtained by The New York Times, but with a warning. Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said direct aggression by the US towards the Syrian government would lead to “frightening, tectonic shifts” in the Middle East.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitoring group, said airstrikes also hit a smaller field hospital in the Sakhur neighbourhood on Saturday. “One person was killed and the field hospital is out of service,” said the Observatory head, Rami Abdel Rahman.
Russian warplanes were also involved in the attacks on Saturday as the army shelled the besieged old quarter in a major offensive.
The airstrikes focused on major supply lines into rebel-held areas – the Castello Road and Malah district – while fighting raged in the Suleiman al-Halabi neighbourhood, the frontline to the north of Aleppo’s old city.
An army source quoted in state media said its forces had made advances, which was denied by rebels, who said they had repelled a new assault.
“They are shelling the old city heavily after another failed attempt to gain ground. They have lost several fighters and we are steadfast,” said Abu Hamam, a rebel from the Failaq al-Sham group.
The army said it would press its advantage after retaking the strategic Handarat camp north of Aleppo on Thursday. On Friday, civil defence sources said airstrikes on rebel-held residential areas killed at least 30 people with the use of incendiary and phosphorous bombs causing extensive damage and fires.
The observatory said at least 20 were killed by sustained Russian and Syrian army strikes and artillery shelling on Friday and into the early hours of Saturday. State media added that rebel mortar attacks on government-held Midan and other areas in the city killed at least 20 people.
Medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières described the impact of Syrian and Russian bombardment of the east as a bloodbath.
More than 220 people have been killed in the east of the city since the government launched its offensive on 22 September. Residents of government-held neighbourhoods expressed relief that the rebels were being pushed back but said they feared retaliation. “We were happy when we heard about the army’s advance,” said Majed Abboud, a 32-year-old car dealer.
“But I’m afraid that with these ferocious clashes, there will be some kind of reaction from the armed groups,” he said. “They hit us with rockets and there were many casualties today [Friday] in Suleiman al-Halabi and al-Midan.”
Aleppo, Syria’s largest city and commercial hub before the civil war began in 2011, has been divided into government and opposition sectors for four years.
Video, which appears to have been shot inside an ambulance travelling to a hospital, shows a Syrian Civil Defence volunteer weeping as he holds the baby in his arms, while a paramedic treats the infant’s head injuries. The Syrian Civil Defence member said it had taken two hours to retrieve the baby from the rubble of a four-storey building. He said the building had been hit by an airstrike carried out by Syrian government forces. The infant was taken to hospital for treatment
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Secretary of State John Kerry was clearly exasperated, not least at his own government.
Over and over again, he complained to a small group of Syrian civilians that his diplomacy had not been backed by a serious threat of military force, according to an audio recording of the meeting obtained by The New York Times.
0:34
“I think you’re looking at three people, four people in the administration who have all argued for use of force, and I lost the argument.”
The 40-minute discussion, on the sidelines of last week’s United Nations General Assembly in New York, provides a glimpse of Mr. Kerry’s frustration with his inability to end the Syrian crisis. He veered between voicing sympathy for the Syrians’ frustration with United States policy and trying to justify it.
The conversation took place days after a brief cease-fire he had spearheaded crumbled, and as his Russian counterpart rejected outright his new proposal to stop the bombing of Aleppo. Those setbacks were followed by days of crippling Russian and Syrian airstrikes in Aleppo that the World Health Organization said Wednesday had killed 338 people, including 100 children.
At the meeting last week, Mr. Kerry was trying to explain that the United States has no legal justification for attacking Mr. Assad’s government, whereas Russia was invited in by the government.
0:33
“The problem is the Russians don’t care about international law, and we do.”
Mr. Kerry has been hamstrung by Russia’s military operations in Syria and by his inability to persuade Washington to intervene more forcefully. He has also been unable to sell Syrian opponents of Mr. Assad, like the ones in that room, on a policy he does not wholeheartedly believe in.
His frustrations and dissent within the Obama administration have hardly been a secret, but in the recorded conversation, Mr. Kerry lamented being outmaneuvered by the Russians, expressed disagreement with some of Mr. Obama’s policy decisions and said Congress would never agree to use force.
0:19
“We’re trying to pursue the diplomacy, and I understand it’s frustrating. You have nobody more frustrated than we are.”
The meeting took place at the Dutch Mission to the United Nations on Sept. 22. There were perhaps 20 people around a table: representatives of four Syrian groups that provide education, rescue and medical services in rebel-held areas; diplomats from three or four countries; and Mr. Kerry’s chief of staff and special envoy for Syria. The recording was made by a non-Syrian attendee, and several other participants confirmed its authenticity.
John Kirby, a State Department spokesman, declined on Thursday evening to comment on what he described as a private conversation. He said that Mr. Kerry was “grateful for the chance to meet with this group of Syrians, to hear their concerns firsthand and to express our continued focus on ending this civil war.”
Several of the Syrian participants said afterward that they had left the meeting demoralized, convinced that no further help would come from the Obama administration. One, a civil engineer named Mustafa Alsyofi, said Mr. Kerry had effectively told the Syrian opposition, “You have to fight for us, but we will not fight for you.”
“How can this be accepted by anyone?” Mr. Alsyofi asked. “It’s unbelievable.”
In the meeting, he and the others pressed Mr. Kerry politely but relentlessly on what they saw as contradictions in American policy. Their comments crystallized the widespread sense of betrayal even among the Syrians most attractive to Washington as potential partners, civilians pushing for pluralistic democracy.
One woman, Marcell Shehwaro, demanded “the bottom line,” asking “how many Syrians” had to be killed to prompt serious action.
0:18
“What is the end of it? What he can do that would be the end of it?”
Mr. Kerry responded that “Assad’s indifference to anything” could push the administration to consider new options, adding, “There’s a different conversation taking place” since the intensified bombing of Aleppo and the further breakdown of talks with Russia.
But he also said any further American effort to arm rebels or join the fight could backfire.
0:39
“The problem is that, you know, you get, quote, enforcers in there and then everybody ups the ante, right? Russia puts in more, Iran puts in more; Hezbollah is there more and Nusra is more; and Saudi Arabia and Turkey put all their surrogate money in, and you all are destroyed.”
At another point, Mr. Kerry spelled out in stark terms distinctions the United States was making between combatants, which have upset the Syrian opposition: The United States wants the rebels to help it fight the Islamic State and Al Qaeda because, as he put it, “both have basically declared war on us.” But Washington will not join the same rebels in fighting Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militia allied with Mr. Assad, even though the United States lists Hezbollah as a terrorist group like the others.
“Hezbollah,” Mr. Kerry explained, “is not plotting against us.”
He also spoke of the obstacles he faces back home: a Congress unwilling to authorize the use of force and a public tired of war.
0:17
“A lot of Americans don’t believe that we should be fighting and sending young Americans over to die in another country.”
One of the Syrians in the room assured Mr. Kerry, “No one is requesting an invasion,” but he insisted that the rebels needed more help.
As time ran short, Mr. Kerry told the Syrians that their best hope was a political solution to bring the opposition into a transitional government. Then, he said, “you can have an election and let the people of Syria decide: Who do they want?”
A State Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said later that Mr. Kerry was not indicating a shift in the administration’s view of Mr. Assad, only reiterating a longstanding belief that he would be ousted in any fair election.
At one point, Mr. Kerry astonished the Syrians at the table when he suggested that they should participate in elections that include President Bashar al-Assad, five years after President Obama demanded that he step down.
Mr. Kerry described the election saying it would be set up by Western and regional powers, and the United Nations, “under the strictest standards.” He said that the millions of Syrians who have fled since the war began in 2011 would be able to participate.
0:19
“Everybody who’s registered as a refugee anywhere in the world can vote. Are they going to vote for Assad? Assad’s scared of this happening.”
But the Syrians were skeptical that people living under government rule inside Syria would feel safe casting ballots against Mr. Assad, even with international observers — or that Russia would agree to elections if it could not ensure the outcome. And that is when the conversation reached an impasse, with Ms. Shehwaro, an educator and social media activist, recalling hopes for a more direct American role.
“So you think the only solution is for somebody to come in and get rid of Assad?” Mr. Kerry asked.
“Yes,” Ms. Shehwaro said.
“Who’s that going to be?” he asked. “Who’s going to do that?”
0:16
“Three years ago, I would say: You. But right now, I don’t know.”
نشرت صحيفة "نيويورك تايمز" تسجيلات صوتيّة تضمّنت حديث وزير الخارجية الأميركي، جون كيري، مع مجموعة من المعارضين السوريين. وأظهرت التسجيلات المسرّبة استياء كيري من إدارته التي لم تدعم جهوده الدبلوماسية، عبر تهديد جدّي باستخدام القوّة العسكريّة.
الحوار الذي دام 40 دقيقة، وجرى على هامش اجتماعات الجمعية العامة للأمم المتّحدة في نيويورك الأسبوع الماضي، أعرب فيه كيري عن إحباطه إزاء عدم قدرته على إنهاء الأزمة السورية، إذ عبّر عن تفهّمه لإحباط السوريّين من السياسة الأميركية، محاولاً إيجاد تبريرٍ لذلك.
أتى حديث كيري بعد أيام من انهيار اتّفاق وقف إطلاق النار، الذي أشرف عليه كيري بنفسه بعد مداولات مع نظيره الروسي، سيرغي لافروف، وبالتزامن مع رفض الروس اقتراحاً جديداً كان قد قدّمه لوقف القصف على حلب.
وقد عُقد الاجتماع في مقرّ البعثة الهولنديّة للأمم المتّحدة في 22 سبتمبر/أيلول، وضمّ 20 شخصاً ممثّلين عن أربع مجموعات سوريّة تقدّم خدمات تتعلق بالتعليم والإنقاذ والخدمات الطبيّة في المناطق التي تسيطر عليها المعارضة، بالإضافة إلى عدد من الدبلوماسيين.
وذكرت الصحيفة أنّ تسجيل حديث كيري قام به أحد الحضور، وهو ليس سوريّاً، وأكدت أنّ العديد من المشاركين في الاجتماع أثبتوا صحّة التسجيل.
وخلال الاجتماع، حاول كيري أن يشرح للحاضرين أنّ الولايات المتّحدة لا تملك مبرّراً قانونيّاً لمهاجمة حكومة الأسد، في الوقت الذي تلقّت فيه روسيا دعوةً للتدخّل من قبل النظام السوري.
وقال "المشكلة هي أنّ روسيا لا تكترث بالقانون الدولي، لكن نحن نفعل".
وبحسب "نيويورك تايمز"، فقد عبّر الوزير الأميركي عن عجزه إزاء العمليّات العسكرية الروسية في سورية، وعدم قدرته على إقناع واشنطن للتدخّل بقوّة أكبر، كما لم يكن باستطاعته ما وصفه بـ"بيع" معارضي بشار الأسد، وفق سياسة لا يؤمن بها "بكلّ إخلاص".
إحباط كيري، فضلاً عن الاختلافات داخل إدارة أوباما، لم يعودا سرّاً الآن، كما يرى كاتب المقال. لكن المحادثات المسجّلة كشفت إحباطاً أكبر، إذ عبّر كيري عن خيبة أمله من أنّ الروس فاقوه دهاءً، معرباً عن عدم اتّفاقه مع بعض قرارات أوباما السياسيّة، مشيراً إلى أنّ الكونغرس لن يوافق البتّة على استخدام القوّة.
وأضاف كيري في التسجيل "نحن نحاول مواصلة الجهود الدبلوماسية، وأنا أتفهم أن الأمر محبط، لكنّكم لن تجدوا أحداً أكثر إحباطاً منّي".
إلى ذلك، أشارت الصحيفة إلى أنّ العديد من المشاركين غادروا الاجتماع محبطين، مع قناعة بأنّ إدارة أوباما لن تقدّم لهم مساعدات إضافية. وبحسب ما ذكر أحدهم، وهو مصطفى السيوفي، مهندس مدنيّ، أنّ كيري أبلغ المعارضة السورية حرفياً "عليكم أن تقاتلوا من أجلنا، لكنّنا لن نقاتل عنكم".
Aleppo has become synonymous with destruction and death, barrel bombs, bunker busters and shattered hospitals. For the doctors and rescue workers racing to save lives around the clock, life has become a blur of blood, death and desperation.
But between the explosions and the street fights, there are more than 200,000 civilians trying to cling to a semblance of normal life in east Aleppo, a quarter of them children.
Taxis and bakeries, water plants and market stalls, schools and charities all operated in rebel-held east Aleppo. Until government forces began a siege in July, vital supplies filtered in and out, residents could visit friends or even leave if they wanted to. Some stayed out of loyalty, others for desperation or fear of life as a refugee in squalid camps.
Among the factions fighting in the city are hardline Islamists, including a group formerly linked to al-Qaida. But east Aleppo is also still home to artists and moderate activists, including women who work in its charities and schools.
A new term had been due to start on Saturday, but classes have been suspended indefinitely in the face of last week’s unprecedented bombing campaign on the city, which the UN’s chief humanitarian officer described as a “terrible descent into the pitiless and merciless abyss”.
The siege is also biting hard. Food supplies are shrinking, fruit and vegetables have all but gone from people’s plates, and fuel is dwindling too, so most cars have vanished from the streets. They are hoarding supplies for generators that power not just hospitals but also the internet connections that are east Aleppo’s link with the world.
In other eras, cutting supply lines also cut communication, but smartphones and satellite internet routers mean the people of Aleppo can reach out online beyond the circumscribed world that one resident described as a “vast, open-air prison”.
Food and medical aid cannot get in, but stories of horror can get out. The Guardian used Skype and WhatsApp to speak with several civilian residents of Aleppo about daily life under siege and bombardment. Below are their stories, in their own words.
Afraa Hashem: ‘I was arrested after the revolution, and my family had to pay a lot of money to get me out.’ Photograph: Afraa Hashem
I woke up at 7 o’clock when a bomb landed near my apartment. My children were terrified and started to cry and shout. There was some damage to the doors and windows of our apartment from the blast, but I managed to calm them down then I made some coffee to drink with my husband and calm myself down.
The boys were hungry, but we had no bread, just some pasta and an onion, which I cooked up for them. They begged me, “Please mum, stay with us, don’t go out in case the plane comes again.”
There is a hospital near our home and when they heard the ambulances arriving they started crying again, and asking if there were children or old people or women injured. They can see the casualties from our window.
I was working as a teacher in intermediate school before the war. We were a normal family, we would go around the city, to parks, to restaurants to relax. But I was arrested after the revolution, and my family had to pay a lot of money to get me out of jail and so I haven’t gone back to the regime side for five years.
I run a school, so before this siege I would go there every day with my sons, who are 10 and 12, they would study and play with the other students, then we would come home, make dinner, watch TV together.
But the bombing is intense now, targeting everything: schools, hospitals, mosques. Two of the teachers, my friends, were killed and another injured in his leg and hands when they were walking to school.
So for now the school is shut, a few teachers go there to prepare things, in case the atmosphere improves and we can open again.
In the morning when the planes come we all go to the shelters, we spend most of our time there and it is so boring, there is nothing to do, no electricity, no fuel for the generator.
There are so many difficulties. I can’t tell you what its like when my son says “I am hungry” and I don’t know what I can prepare for him. Last week was his birthday and he cried all night because we couldn’t make him a cake.
Afraa’s son’s birthday party, without cake. Photograph: Afraa Hashem
The children remember their friends who have left or died, their relatives who are abroad, they make models of them from paper and talk to them as if they are still here. I listen to my boys telling them stories about their lives.
Sometimes they come to school with me, see it is empty and say: “When will classes start?” I’m thinking if the atmosphere gets better, we will take them out to paint murals on some of the cars and buses damaged by the bombing.
Even though we are suffering a lot, and alone, we are happy, because we are fighting to get our freedom. I hope even if I die, my children will grow up in a free and safe country. I want you to ask the world, don’t send food to us, but prevent the regime from killing us.
Most of my family are in Turkey, but one brother is here and I work with him. We set up the school together, and I work with psychological support for the children, and for the women who need support, who lost their husband, or sons by the war.
Our school is in an underground shelter now, but I can still see when the children arrive with their school bags, there is happiness in their eyes, they are excited to study.
The taxi driver: Abo Awad
Abo Awad: ‘All the news I hear is that someone else has been killed.’ Photograph: Hussein Akoush
We don’t sleep well as the jets are always overhead, they wake me up early although I try to ignore the sound.
If we have water, I perform an ablution before my morning prayer, and if not I go to the nearby mosque with a bowl to get some water. There are usually a handful of people there doing the same.
There is no electricity, so it’s dark inside the apartment, but my wife is usually up when I get back and we take the chance to talk before the children are awake.
One of the best sounds of the morning is my neighbour turning on his generator, although its just for two hours to save fuel. We all meet to charge batteries and phones, and talk about events in Aleppo and the bombings overnight with a cup of tea.
When I come home, my children are getting up. The first thing one of them said to me yesterday was: “Thank God we are still alive.”
I go out for bread, and just get one bag with eight pieces, which is only enough for a single meal. We are a large family: me, my wife and 11 children. It’s a poor and unhealthy breakfast, bread with maybe some tomato paste, olives and tea, but we finish it all.
I have diabetes and kidney problems, and my wife has rheumatism and back problems, but we cannot get the medicines we need, not even painkillers. The supplies I collected when the siege was broken last month have run out.
We are from a village near al-Bab which is under Isis control now. I used to be an accountant for the Syrian army, but I left the job in 2011 and went to work as a taxi driver in Aleppo. We have no income now. My taxi was smashed in an airstrike and there is no fuel here these days anyway.
If it’s a quiet morning, I go out to walk, but Aleppo is a deserted city now. There are no people or cars on the streets, all I see is the wreckage and debris and all the news I hear is that someone else has been killed, or there is a massacre in the next neighbourhood.
When jets are overhead we go down to basement in our building, where children and women begin to scream and cry and men are also afraid, especially after the use of bunker-buster bombs. We feel we are waiting for death.
Every day, we receive text message from the Syrian army saying things like: “The ceasefire deal didn’t last, Americans and Turks didn’t abide by terms of the agreement” and “If you want the reconciliation and peace then you must raise the flag of the Syrian Arab Republic.”
We skip lunch to save food, and in the evening use old furniture and other wood for cooking rice or bulgar wheat. There is no power or internet connection, it is strangely quiet under the LED bulbs of our battery torches.
It feels like we are in a prison, a really big but claustrophobic prison. And we stay in this mood until we go to bed around 10 or 11 and try to sleep. It’s an unbearable situation.
Zein al-Sham: ‘I try to comfort them, although inside I am also afraid.’ Photograph: Hussein Akoush for the Guardian
I wake up early. Normally my first priority in the morning would be to have a cup of coffee but unfortunately, there is no coffee left in my neighbourhood because of the siege.
I have a hectic schedule because I volunteer in two hospitals, work part time for an American aid organisation, and teach history and geography at the Pioneers of Aleppo underground school.
It’s in a basement to protect the children, but they are still scared, especially now. One of my students asked me the other day: “Why is our school underground? I don’t want to suffocate under rubble if we are hit.”
I try to comfort them, although inside I am also afraid. Some kids don’t come to school any more because their mothers keep them at home, they want to stay close to their loved ones now.
I am 26 years old and originally from Aleppo. I got involved in anti-regime activism in 2012 when I was doing my undergraduate degree in education at the university here.
First peaceful protests, then I started volunteering in a field hospital in eastern neighbourhoods, moving between there and the government-held areas so I could carry on with my education, until I was arrested in 2013 because of that work.
I was tortured and had a lot of psychological problems when they finally released me more than a year later. Everything had changed and my parents had left Aleppo, but I went to stay with my brother and my old friends encouraged me to start work again.
Now I teach in the mornings, and then two days a week I go to the charity offices, where I am a team leader overseeing distribution of aid to vulnerable people in three districts.
The other days I volunteer at hospitals, particularly during critical times like now. I’ve witnessed four amputations in four days, and we don’t even have any specialists.
I just have one meal a day now, either at the hospital or at home where I cook for myself. I am lucky to still have gas because I bought a cylinder for $150 a few days ago. It’s expensive, but I can make it last a long time.
We are also short of some things that only women use. Supplies have been cut because of the siege and the men don’t think of that.
In the evening, I take advantage of the generator, which is only on for two hours, to charge my phone and my computer, and the battery for the internet router. I prepare for classes the next day, and do reports for the aid group. Then I browse the internet, chat with my brother and sister in Turkey or my friends, and go to sleep around 2am.
I visited the USA and UK last year for a workshop and to attend a film about me and four other women working here. I did think about staying on to finish my education, but I decided to come back because my country needs me now.
I am ambitious and conscientious, and I will complete my studies one day regardless of my age or if I have got married. I have a dream and I will still achieve it.
Abu Mehio: ‘We are very short of key supplies.’ Photograph: Hussein Akoush for the Guardian
I’m 38 years old, married with four children, and before the revolution I was a football coach at al-Shortah Police sports club. Now I am head of the local council for my neighbourhood, and until this week director of logistics for two bakeries. One was bombed on Wednesday, so now I have to try to make bread for the same number of families from just one.
Normally I would get up early for the pre-dawn prayer, then have coffee with biscuits if we have any, before going to inspect the bakeries and help deliver loaves.
But on Wednesday I was woken around 3am by someone banging on our door. I ran to open it and outside was a colleague, breathless, gasping: “The bakery has been hit.” I threw on my clothes and jumped in the car.
We got to the site of the attack around an hour after the bomb hit. It was a terrible scene, with the White Helmets and paramedics trying to find survivors among the rubble. They had hit the middle of the bakery on purpose, we are sure, and eight people, including one of the owners, were killed.
Only his business partner and the head baker survived, and one of them has lost an eye. There was a terrible mess, and the van they use for bread deliveries was smashed as well, so I had to use my own car for getting out what bread we could save.
The bakery served two large neighbourhoods, feeding nearly 6,000 families. Now I am going to have to see if the smaller bakery, already feeding 4,000 families, can stretch to making bread for more than twice that number.
On a normal afternoon I dedicate myself to local council business. We try to do what we can for people, try to fix damaged electricity or water networks, distribute aid to vulnerable people and other things. We do our best these days even with the siege and continuous bombing and shelling.
Then I get home some time between five and seven for dinner with my wife and children. They wait for me to eat. At the moment we are surviving on lentils, bulgur wheat, rice, and a little aubergine, from small fields nearby where you can only find aubergine, mint and parsley.
We use a paraffin stove and sometimes wood for cooking. Gas costs a fortune, if you can even find a cylinder for sale these days. We aren’t really heating up anything already cooked to save fuel, because we don’t know when the siege will be broken.
I like to spend a few hours talking with my family in the evening, although we don’t have so much power these days for lights. My children are a little bored right now, as they have to stay at home all day. There are no schools open, because of the bombing.
When they have gone to bed, I sometimes make deliveries of fuel and flour to the bakeries before coming home to sleep. Sometimes another person does this so I can rest. We are very short of key supplies.
The White Helmet rescue worker: Ismail al-Abdullah
Abdullah: ‘These bombs are meant to be used against military bases, so why are they dropping them here?’ Photograph: Hussein Akoush
We are divided in two teams at each centre. Most of us work 24-hour shifts, then go home and rest. But I don’t have a family in Aleppo any more so I just stay at the headquarters, sleeping and eating there.
Yesterday was a busy night. We were called out after a bombing at around 4am, by staff at one of the hospitals. We heard a big explosion, then one of the doctors radioed us to help get the injured people to another hospital, because we can’t treat them all.
The casualties were all just lying on the floor, because there was no room for anyone on the beds and they didn’t have enough staff to treat them all.
So we raced out to help. I was out for over an hour, came back and went back to bed, then another bombing woke me up around 9am. They were calling for us from a site near the old city, where they said there was a family stuck under the rubble.
It turned out that this wasn’t a rescue mission though; they were all dead before we arrived. We brought out the bodies of three children and their father and mother.
These bunker busters are unbelievable. I recently learned that these bombs are meant to be used against military bases, so why are they dropping them here? Maybe because they are not satisfied with the numbers of their victims from other bombs. When I hear a war plane overhead it makes my blood run cold.
Abdullah rescues a child: ‘We are fed up of everything – bombing, killing, pulling people from under the rubble.’ Photograph: sceengrab for the Guardian
We took the family to the morgue. Workers there take photos of all the victims, and if no one collects the body, then they bury them too. But neighbours and relatives came for these people, and so we drove back to headquarters.
We still have some fuel and the cars are working as usual, but in the coming days we will run out. Food supplies are low as well – we are just living off lentils, beans and bulgar wheat, and soon we will have to start looking for wood to cook them because gas supplies are nearly out.
All day, between rescue missions, I’ve also been worrying about my family. My parents and brothers and sisters left Aleppo because of the bombing and are staying in the countryside near the Turkish border, but I lost contact with them on Tuesday.
My mother is very sick and doesn’t really have good medical care where she is living, or the medicines she needs. I’m really waiting for my brother to call and tell me they are OK.
We had dinner, we talked about what happened, and then we slept. Usually at night I stay up and play cards before bed, but we are really tired, exhausted. We are fed up of everything – bombing, killing, pulling people from under the rubble.
Asmar Halabi: ‘We are afraid of bombing day and night.’ Photograph: Hussein Akoush for the Guardian
We have four more children in the orphanage now, because an airstrike killed one of our staff members and her husband this week. She was called Alia Nasser, she was 32 and worked as a maid.
Everything is getting worse, with the aerial attacks and shortages from the siege. One bomb hit only 50 metres away, the dust filled the air so you couldn’t see anything. It’s the worst ever attack, completely unprecedented. I saw one crater that was five metres deep.
We are afraid of bombing day and night. When the planes come, I tell the babysitters and supervisors to take the children down to the bunker, but they can still hear the bombs landing. Some of them have got used to these sounds, but many cry, and a few of them are so frightened they wet themselves.
We are just eating the same type of food at every meal – lentil soup and a kind of cracked bulgar wheat – and our stocks are running out.
My biggest fear is that the siege will continue for a long time, because we have to feed 50 children and over 20 staff, and I always keep worrying about what tomorrow will bring, thinking about the shortages. I always inspect everything myself, to make sure nothing is missing.
Because of the incessant aerial bombardment, artillery shelling and mortar shelling, I just stay inside at the orphanage or at home. I only really go out when I need to get something for myself, or when I need to pick up an orphan at the court or hand them over to a guardian.
I often don’t leave the orphanage until around 10pm. Before the siege, when there was a real market, I used to go shopping with my wife, but these days I just have dinner then sit and talk under LED lights for a bit.
I get up again around nine or 10, drink a cup of coffee and then go back to the orphanage again, to discuss the daily situation with staff, maybe talk through some sensitive issues with the teenagers or play with the smaller children.
Actually, because of the siege and the bombing, the orphanage takes up all my time. I feel guilty about my wife but she appreciates that I am working for vulnerable children, and supports that my job is my priority.
Sometimes she comes with me to the orphanage, to help me and play with the children. We don’t want them to get bored.
