Syria conflict: Barrel-bombed Aleppo 'living in fear'
Rescuers brave attack to respond at the sites of bombardments in Aleppo
A
BBC team has witnessed the devastating effects of air bombardment on
Syrian civilians after gaining rare access to rebel-held areas of
Aleppo.
Emergency rescue teams told the BBC the city was living in "danger and fear".
Thousands of people are reported to have been killed or maimed in a campaign of aerial bombardment in northern Syria this year.
The BBC's Ian Pannell and Darren Conway are the first Western broadcasters in rebel-held Aleppo this year.
"My husband was sitting at breakfast. We heard the first
blast: it sounded far away. But I asked him to go and get the kids off
the street. And suddenly it hit us."
Um Yahya wept. With two small children at her side, the young
mother was standing in what until that morning had been her home. It
was now a wreck: a tangle of rubble and cables and dust, with half the
ceiling missing and parts of the building completely razed.
Consumed by shock and grief, she described the moment the
barrel bomb landed on her street. "It was as if someone picked me up and
threw me inside".
Her husband, who had gone to find their children, was badly
injured and had been whisked off to hospital. Her parents have fled to
Turkey and she is now alone with her children. "I have nowhere to go,"
she said. "I just want my husband and nothing else."
One monitoring group says nearly 700 civilians have been killed in and around Aleppo in recent weeks
'I am so scared'
Outside, the emergency rescue team of the Civil Defence Force
(CDF) scoured through the rubble. With little training and limited
equipment from Britain, America and elsewhere, theirs is a task as grim
as it is dangerous.
When there is an attack on residential areas, they race in to search for survivors and - as often as not - to recover bodies.
In the last year, eight crewmembers have been killed as they brave bombs and bullets to rescue others.
Khalid Al Heju, the head of the CDF in Aleppo, says it is their responsibility to help those who have no one else to turn to.
"Our humanity urges us to do this job, to save people from under the rubble and take them to hospital," he says.
But he admits to living with fear, like so many others in
this battered city. "Yes, I am scared, I am so scared. The same position
is often hit more than one time.
"This is creating the most danger and fear for us."
Like the people they save, they face attacks from the land and air.
'Indiscriminate, dumb weapons'
The conflict has laid waste to large parts of the city
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Sarah Leah Whitson Middle East director at Human Rights WatchIf these... weapons managed to hit a military target, it would be sheer luck”
Since last September Aleppo,
Syria's largest city and its former economic capital, has been at the
receiving end of what the pressure group Human Rights Watch (HRW) calls
"an indiscriminate and unlawful air war against civilians by the Syrian
government". Last month HRW produced a study into the scale of the attacks.
HRW says the use of barrel bombs has "terrorised" Aleppo in recent months.
The bombs are crude devices, often made from oil drums or
large gas bottles, packed with explosives and bits of metal, that are
literally tossed over the side of helicopters.
The devastation they cause and the fear they instil has
forced tens of thousands of people to flee the city this year, according
to charities and NGOs working with displaced families.
"Satellite photos and witness accounts show the brutality
unleashed on parts of Aleppo," according to Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle
East director at Human Rights Watch.
"If these indiscriminate, dumb weapons managed to hit a military target, it would be sheer luck," she says.
Even nightfall brings no respite from the war for Aleppo's residents
In a rare show of unity over Syria, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution
in February that called for an immediate end to "all attacks against
civilians, as well as the indiscriminate employment of weapons in
populated areas, including shelling and aerial bombardment, such as the
use of barrel bombs".
The Violations Documentation Center,
an opposition monitoring group, claims nearly 700 civilians have been
killed across Aleppo province by warplanes and barrel bombs since the UN
resolution was agreed.
The resolution also called for an immediate end to all forms
of violence and called on both sides to cease attacking and besieging
civilians as a tactic of war. That has also not happened.
President Bashar al Assad insists his military is fighting to
protect civilians, targeting what he calls "terrorists and foreign
extremists". The armed opposition has also been accused of human rights
violations and there have have been many cases where the rebels have
killed civilians through bombardment, but on a very different scale.
World's 'indifference'
We have been coming to Aleppo since the battle began here, nearly two years ago.
The report of war is the soundtrack for a city that is a shabby imitation of its former self.
Whole neighbourhoods lie empty; the facades of buildings have
been ripped off, piles of rubble lie where homes used to stand, and
roads are blocked by the charred remains of buses that protect
passers-by from the scopes of snipers.
Even in the still of night, in a city consumed by darkness, the war grinds on.
The battle for Aleppo sharply escalated a few weeks ago as
different rebel groups launched a surprise joint attack on government
positions.
Abu Bakri is a leader of the Abu Amara Brigades, one of the
groups on the frontline, and claims the bombing has galvanised the
rebels.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
Feras English teacher in AleppoPeople here started to hate both sides. We don't want the regime forces or the FSA; [we] just want to live in peace”
"The regime has been threatening
citizens with barrel bombs and airstrikes. It made all the armed
factions in the city come together and form a joint operations room," he
says.
"We are learning from our mistakes and trying to be more organised with weapons we have and use in better way."
As many as 70% of Aleppo's residents are thought to have
abandoned the city to the two warring groups. "Life here totally sucks",
says Feras, a young English teacher living in one of the neighbourhoods
that has been attacked. He was afraid to give his family name.
"It isn't a life: [we are] afraid of shells falling on our
heads day or night. We don't know if we go this way, if it's safe or
not."
There are no signs of an end to this war, despite President Assad's reported prediction it will be over by the end of the year.
A trickle of aid makes its way across the border but Syrians
feel shunned by what they see as the indifference of the outside world.
They are defenceless in the face of incessant attacks, caught between
two sides determined to fight to the bitter end and with little hope of
either respite or relief.
Feras supported the revolution when it began. People used to
talk about freedom and democracy in Syria. Today the talk is only of
bombs and bullets, of deprivation and despair.
"Many armed groups here are stealing houses, not doing good
to people. That's why people here started to hate both sides. We don't
want the regime forces or the FSA; [we] just want to live in peace."
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