‘There Are No More Panes of Glass Left in Aleppo’

When the bodies of 16 members of the Qasim family were pulled from the rubble of their home last month, there was no space left in one of Aleppo’s largest cemeteries to bury them. Gravediggers unearthed seven graves of relatives and divided the newly dead among them. They buried a mother, her two children and sister with her grandmother. Other children were buried in their grandfather’s grave. The men were buried with their fathers. “We pushed the old bones to one side and then lowered the new body in,” said Ahmad Sabbagh , an embroiderer-turned-gravedigger. Ahmad Sabbagh is a gravedigger at the Shaar cemetery in Aleppo. The cemetery is out of space, so bodies are doubled up into old graves. The challenge of where to bury the dead is just one of the daily miseries afflicting the people living under a choking siege in Aleppo. Some 300,000 people in the rebel-held, eastern side of the divided city are struggling under a blockade by the Assad regime imposed in July that has kept them from getting food, fuel and medicine. Heavy bombing by the regime and its ally Russia has brought the city to a breaking point after more than five grinding years of civil war. “The city of eastern Aleppo, at this rate, may be totally destroyed,” said United Nations Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura earlier this month. Aleppo at the outset of the war had five times the population of Dresden, which was flattened by Allied raids during World War II. The destruction is akin to when Atlanta burned ahead of Sherman’s March to the Sea. Secretary of State John Kerry has compared it to Carthage, which was razed by the Romans in 146 B.C. Satellite imagery earlier this year showed Aleppo is Syria’s most damaged city, with the rate of destruction doubling in the past two years, according to a World Bank report released earlier this year. Out of six Syrian cities assessed, Aleppo accounted for 58% of the destruction in the housing, health, education, water and energy sectors. As of March 2016, 29% of the residential buildings have been estimated to be either damaged or destroyed, according to the World Bank. Some 300,000 people are living in the besieged, rebel-controlled half of Aleppo. The search for water, food and fuel has become a desperate effort under a blockade imposed by the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Video: Emily B. Hager; Photo: Ameer Al Halabi/Press Services Network for The Wall Street Journal Since then, damage has accelerated as a result of the renewed offensive using increasingly destructive weapons. Imagery since September reveals that in one week 90 locations were damaged or destroyed in an area about the size of Manhattan, according to Amnesty International. “We got tired of rehanging glass,” said Ali Sandeh , who heads the Aleppo branch of a local charity called Bonyan, referring to blown-out windows. Flying shards have injured and killed so many people that they have been replaced by opaque fiberglass or tarps. “There are no more panes of glass left in Aleppo.” Aleppo, inhabited since 5000 B.C., was known for antiquities from the days when it was a rich Silk Road trading post second only to Constantinople. Aerial footage shows pockets flattened and buildings so damaged they look like melted candles. The destruction has claimed large parts of the city’s ancient souk, a Unesco World Heritage site, and severely damaged the 12th-century Great Mosque and the 13th-century citadel. More than 10,450 have died in the city since the beginning of the uprising-turned-war in March 2011. In the weeks since a short U.S.-Russian brokered cease-fire collapsed on Sept. 19, more than 360 civilians on the rebel side have been killed, including about 100 children and 55 women, according to the opposition monitoring group Syrian Network for Human Rights. OPPOSITION AREAS YPG (KURDS) OPPOSITION AREAS ALEPPO ASSAD REGIME turkey Aleppo Raqqa SYRIA

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More than a million have been forced to flee their homes, cutting the city’s prewar population of three million almost in half, the United Nations said. Food, water and fuel are running out.

Aleppo is “another Srebrenica, another Rwanda,” said Mr. de Mistura. “Thousands of Syrian civilians, not terrorists, will be killed.”

Russia says it doesn’t target civilians in Syria, and the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad says it is battling terrorists—a blanket term it uses for anyone in opposition to the government.

Syrian and Russian forces implemented a humanitarian pause last week ostensibly to let aid into the besieged eastern neighborhoods and allow residents there to leave. But no aid was delivered during the three days, and, on Thursday, several civilians who attempted to move to the government-controlled side of the city were shot at by a regime sniper, according to residents and medical officials.

In September, after the failed cease-fire, the Assad regime launched an offensive to retake the entire city of Aleppo, which has been divided since 2012. There have been dozens of airstrikes and mortar attacks each day in the east, with repeated attempts by regime forces and allied Shiite militias to advance on the front line.

Rebel fighters also launch mortar attacks onto the government-held side of the city, but their weapons are far less destructive. Life in western Aleppo remains relatively normal—despite it also being plagued by electricity and water outages—with students attending school, restaurants and cafes still bustling and travel in and out of the city remaining open.

In eastern Aleppo, residents describe in interviews a city they no longer recognize. Its once-congested streets are empty of vehicles because few have the money to buy gasoline, and its vibrant commercial districts have been reduced to rows of empty shops. Most of the owners have either fled or been killed.

Ahmad Wawi is a rescue worker with the White Helmets civil defense group. He injured his leg last month.

Residents bake bread. Flour stockpiled by the opposition council, which governs the rebel-held half of the city, will run out soon. Residents sit outside. Families live on the ground floors or in the basements of otherwise demolished buildings. Families live on the ground floors or in the basements of otherwise demolished buildings. On Mr. Sandeh’s street in the Kalaseh neighborhood, there are three buildings entirely destroyed. Many others have suffered severe damage, with entire walls gone and roofs pancaked atop floors. It is the rare building in his neighborhood that is untouched. About 90% of shops are closed, the charity worker said, the result of both the attacks and siege. Insufficient numbers of doctors, nurses and rescue workers struggle to save and treat the wounded. Bodies sometimes remain under rubble for more than a week. Only 30 doctors are left in eastern Aleppo, said Mohammad al-Zein , a medical administrator in the city. During intense airstrikes, injured patients share gurneys or wait on bloody floors to be treated. Sometimes they die while waiting. Other times exhausted doctors make mistakes. Recently one man died when he was given too much anesthesia, said Ammar Ahmad Alselmo , director of the Syrian civil defense group known as the White Helmets. Mr. Alselmo said the group, which was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize this year, has been attacked numerous times, destroying two of its buildings and many ambulances, and injuring six of its rescue workers in the latest offensive. Before the siege, neighborhoods roared at night with generators. Now there is only enough fuel to operate generators for a couple of hours a day. “Another two hours and there will be quiet and darkness,” resident Tameem Sailim said on a recent evening in the Shaar neighborhood. “And then all we hear is the sound of planes, and shelling and clashes.” Light comes from candles, now costly amid a wax shortage. For heat, many use the old-fashioned gas stoves called baboors. Trees in public areas have mostly been consumed as firewood, residents said.

A rebel fighter in the city’s ancient souk, a Unesco World Heritage site, which is mostly destroyed.

Fuel and light sources are being sought wherever and no matter the danger. Some have taken to burning plastic in order to extract oil. But it is a combustible process that gives off dangerous fumes and has killed some people in other besieged areas where the practice originated, according to residents in other areas besieged by the Syrian regime. The coming winter, with temperatures typically near freezing, is raising fears. One doctor who worked in a field hospital with no heat and blown-out windows recounted how a few years ago in Aleppo he delivered three babies who died quickly after birth because even the blankets they were wrapped in were freezing. With little fuel to power water pumps, people are often forced to collect water from wells, sometimes spending entire days walking back and forth to fill enough buckets for a family, Mr. Sailim said. Mr. al-Zein, the medical administrator, said he recently saw a 6-year-old girl walking back from a well, her tiny arms struggling to carry water in a two-liter soda bottle and a large jug. As she neared her home, she fumbled and dropped both containers, spilling the water onto a crater-filled road. She cried and stamped her feet for a moment. Then she turned and went back to the well. “These kids should be in school,” he said. “This is not a normal war. This is a dirty war that targets children.” Cities Destroyed by War The rebel-held side of Aleppo, Syria, earlier this month, bombed by Assad and Russian forces. Jawad al Rifai/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images 1 of 13 • • • • • 1 of 13 Show Caption The rebel-held side of Aleppo, Syria, earlier this month, bombed by Assad and Russian forces. Jawad al Rifai/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images In the 10th-grade English class taught by Wissam Zarqa , students earlier this month asked him to skip the lesson on international cuisines, which was accompanied by photos of stuffed grape leaves, paella, pizza and sushi. The students only have dwindling supplies of rice, macaroni, canned beans and eggplant, he said. Flour stockpiled by the opposition council, which governs the rebel-held half of the city, to provide a small amount of bread to residents will run out soon, said Mosaab Khalaf , a member of the council. Air attacks send students and teachers down to basement bunkers. But since the Syrian regime and Russia began using thermobaric bombs, nicknamed “bunker busters,” underground shelters provide little protection, residents said. The U.N. has said the systematic use of these bombs could amount to war crimes. Early this month, the U.S. suspended talks with Moscow to reach a lasting cease-fire and said Russia and the Syrian regime should be investigated for war crimes because of targeted attacks on hospitals and civilians. “Children will go out and play in the same street where a shell landed previously and injured them with shrapnel. They have almost become indifferent,” said Tahany Alikaaj, a mother of two young daughters who works at an underground play area. “We can no longer tell them, ‘You can’t play outside today because there is shelling,’ because there is always shelling.” Schools have become smaller and more local, to avoid becoming visible targets and having students walk long distances on dangerous streets. “Wherever you walk you see a school—in a shop, in a mosque, in a basement,” said Mr. Sandeh, the charity worker. A playground has been turned into a cemetery in the Bustan al-Qaser district. The Shaar cemetery, a sprawling graveyard that stretches across three neighborhoods and holds some 13,000 plots, ran out of space for new graves and started reusing old ones last year. Mr. Sabbagh and his colleagues report for duty at around 6 a.m. each day, sitting among century-old gravestones and waiting for the next air or mortar attack. He said that, months ago, a sniper from the government-controlled side killed one of his colleagues as he was helping a woman find her family’s plot. “I told my boss here that if I die, bury me in the grave with my great-grandfather,” Mr. Sabbagh said. Many bodies are taken from the rubble straight to a grave because most people don’t have the gasoline to take the bodies to the central morgue, said Muhammad Kaheel , the city’s last coroner. No one can afford to buy headstones, and the siege has cut off supplies of stone and cement, said Mr. Sabbagh. Families forgo the mourning tents that used to be erected in the streets for three days, because they have become targets. Two months ago in the Maadi neighborhood, 25 people were killed in a rocket attack on a tent erected to mourn the death of a young man, Mr. Sailim said. Few attend burials. Those who do bury the body quickly, recite a few verses from the Quran and scatter, fearing another attack. Those who can’t find a place in a cemetery are buried in empty lots or public parks, which now have row after row of hastily buried bodies in shallow graves. “We have started referring to these as the ‘public parks of the martyrs,’ ” said Mr. al-Zein.

Cemeteries are mostly full, so bodies are buried in shallow graves in empty lots or public parks.