Aleppo is being drowned in blood. The Assad regime’s armed forces and Iranian-supported militias are doing the killing, supported by Russian air power and armed with Russian weapons. The “great powers” are standing by and letting them get on with it.
This is a disastrous setback for the popular uprising that started in Syria in 2011, although even now that movement of social liberation has not been completely defeated.
These are some facebook posts from Aleppo and elsewhere, shared by Syrian friends.
From Raed Fares on 12 December.
Doomsday in Aleppo
The people of Aleppo have gone to sleep
The people of Aleppo have died
Now, finally, the world will be blessed with a deep, uninterrupted sleep
As power in the US is transferred from a failure to a racist, Putin and Assad are murdering 150,000 civilians in Aleppo
The entire world can finally have some peace and quiet as the screams of Aleppo’s residents will be forever silenced
But their corpses, the corpses of Aleppo, will turn your dreams into nightmares
Aleppo. From Raed Fares.
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From Day of Solidarity with Syria on 13 December.
The Assad regime arrested young people fleeing the besieged districts of Aleppo and is recruiting them to take up arms!
The photos above are from their post.
Young men under arrest in eastern Aleppo, 13 December. Photo from Day of Solidarity With Syria.
Young men under arrest in eastern Aleppo, 13 December. Photo from Day of Solidarity With Syria.
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From Dani Qappani on 12 December.
A message from the few remaining humanitarians in Aleppo, where massacres are happening right now: “We can not believe that the world’s most powerful countries cannot get 100,000 souls four kilometers to relative safety.” Neither can I. This is devastating.
Full statement:
The bombs are falling as we write this. For years our humanitarian volunteers have worked to save the lives of our people in Aleppo: operating in underground hospitals, rescuing entire families buried under the rubble and risking our lives to document what the daily war crimes committed by Assad regime and its ally Russia. We can do no more.
Now we are with 100,000 civilians trapped in an area of five squared metres with the non-stop bombs, shells and advancements on the ground. In one building more than 500 people are sheltering. People have been underground for days.
We are calling on you in the International Community to provide a safe passage out of Aleppo for the remaining 100,000 people. We know that the UN has a plan to get us out across the 4 kilometres of Western Aleppo to safety: with a few dozen buses and lorries we could all be evacuated in twenty four hours. However, we need you to guarantee the safety of their workers and our own.
If we stay we fear for our lives. The women may be taken to camps, the men disappeared and anyone who is known to have supported civilians will face detention or execution. We’ve watched thousands of our boys and mens be detained. Countless White Helmets, doctors, nurses and humanitarians have been targeted and killed in the regime’s cruel assault on Aleppo. The regime has been trying to kill us for five years. Please don’t give them this chance.
We can not believe that the world’s most powerful countries cannot get 100,000 souls four kilometers to relative safety.
Signed,
Syria Civil Defence [the White Helmets]
Independent Doctors Association
Syrian American Medical Society
Kesh Malek
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From Ameen Al-halabi on 13 December.
We are the people of Aleppo, who have watched the world casually turn its back on us, as though we were not part of this world, as though we do not deserve a life of freedom and dignity. Should we regret that we aspired for such equality?
In any case these are our last moments it seems and as I look around me all I see is pain, mothers screaming in the background “where are my children” Maybe her children are somewhere better than this treacherous world, maybe we all are.
Maybe its time to say goodbye
#Besieged_Aleppo
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A demonstration in eastern Ghouta in solidarity with Aleppo.
A demonstration in eastern Ghouta in solidarity with Aleppo. From Abo Alhuda Khaled
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Please follow the English-language blogs by such radical Syrian commentators as Yassin al-Haj Saleh, Leila al-Shami or Syria Freedom Forever. Many, many more links at Syria Sources.
My comment about Syria and the western labour movement, for what it’s worth, is here. I wrote about war as a means of social control in Ukraine, here – and I believe that war in Syria, too, is primarily a means of social control, on an even larger, bloodier scale. GL, 14 December 2016.
People and Nature 