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This is the first in a series to be published over the next year as the Montreal Gazette shadows the Hamalians — Anna and Ohannes, their children Palig and Harout, and grandmother Sita — as they start a new life in Canada.

Until the very moment the bomb exploded, the Hamalians thought they could stick it out, even as life in Aleppo got harder and harder.

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In early 2013, Anna, then 29, was making do with preserves of sun-dried peppers and eggplant, though the family often went without bread for weeks at a time, and had already taken to burning the kitchen cabinets and chairs to boil water and heat their home.

Palig, 9, and her brother Harout, 6, were still going to school, at least in the early morning — before the daily shelling began.

Sometimes, they would see a dead body or a severed limb on the way to school. Anna would tell them there had been an accident.

And until his office was ransacked, in the summer of 2013, Ohannes was still working as a diamond setter and jeweller, though business had dropped off considerably.