Imagine a block of flats with the front sliced off so you can see inside. Two men in kuffiyeh head scarves are sitting on a sofa chatting while a little girl in a red dress is dancing. On the level above, a woman in blue is sweeping with rhythmic strokes. Look a bit closer.

The sofa is pushed against some plastic sheeting. Bare concrete pillars hold up the floors and bags of rubble litter the ground. If the little girl dances carelessly she will fall out of the apartment block on to the rough rain-sodden building site below.

This is how 20 families are living in the Aleppo suburb of Rouad today. They have been forced to stay in structures that are not half destroyed – like many in Aleppo – but half built.

I walked up the open staircase – treacherous for children as with one misstep there is nothing to stop them tumbling down several flights – to the fourth floor of the block where Mustafa Zakaria Naisa is living with his wife and five children.

Rain poured through a crumbling hole in the half-constructed ceiling, and we picked our way through puddles as he showed me the small space they have curtained off for themselves. Peaceful and oblivious, their seven month old baby daughter slept through it all.

Mustafa’s is the story of Aleppo, a once prosperous city brought to ruin. He had done well as a cobbler, putting away money every month until he had saved enough to buy a small apartment. Mustafa was proud of providing for his family but war destroyed his life.

The shelling was unbearable so they moved into a school that served as a shelter for the displaced in a safer part of town. For a while they rented a room hoping that soon they would be able to go home.

But the war never stopped and their money ran out. A month ago, they left the suburb of Ashrafihya, penniless and afraid of continuing bombardment. The only place they could find to live was the building site.

Seven year old Israa should be starting school this year. Her 10 year old sister, Kawthar, hasn’t been to school for three years. She proudly counts to 10 in English.

When I’m grown up I want to be a doctor, she says. Israa gets in on the act – she knows her numbers, she says, and can count to a hundred in Arabic. They are bright, funny, confident girls and if the war in Syria continues they will probably end up marrying early or working as servants or cleaning dishes like the 15 year old son of their neighbour, Mouna Mustafa, who shares the same floor of the half-built block.

The physical damage to Aleppo is shocking – the bombed out buildings, the devastated old souk, smoke from bombardment rising from behind the old citadel – but the destruction of people’s lives will be much harder to repair.

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