As we edited our slideshow on the conflict in Syria today, the picture above made us pause. The scene looked familiar. Checking back through the hundreds of pictures wire agencies have transmitted from Aleppo over recent weeks, we found out why: We had seen this street before, 39 days earlier.
Some tell-tale details remain the same. The red traffic sign on the right has the same small scratch across its band of white. The same green and red graffiti is just about visible on a distant wall. But in the intervening weeks, other things have changed. Rubble is piled up on the left of the frame, where an intact wall and sidewalk was previously visible. And while desperate civilians continue to risk the dangerous path across this piece of open ground, a long piece of cloth has been hung from one side of the street to the other, in an attempt to block the view of snipers.
In an article published on Tuesday, Hamza Hendawi of The Associated Press described the daily lives of Aleppans as the conflict rages around them:
With death lurking around every corner, the survival instincts of Aleppo's population are being stretched to the limit every day as the battle between Syria's rebels and the regime of President Bashar Assad for the country's largest city stretches through its fourth destructive month. Residents in the rebel-held neighborhoods suffering the war's brunt tell tales of lives filled with fear over the war in their streets, along with an ingenuity and resilience in trying to keep their shattered families going.
And while residents of the rebel-held areas express their hatred of Assad's regime and their dream of seeing him go, they also voice their worries over the rebels and the destruction that their offensive has brought to their city. Graffiti on the shutter of a closed store declares the population's sense of resignation: "God, you are all we've got." Read the full story.
Related content:
- Slideshow: Conflict in Syria
- The fragility of life in Syria's borderlands
- Amid Syria's civil war violence, a strange calm in the capital
- Slideshow: The lives of Syrian rebels
- The battle for Aleppo: My 18 days with the Syrian rebels
- Who are the Syrian rebels?
- Are children fighting on Syria's rebel front lines?
- 'Catastrophe': Journalist behind the lines in Syria sees no end to war
- On the road with Syria's rebel motorcycle army
- Glimpses of escalating conflict in Syria
