Eastern Aleppo, Syria. Dec. 4, 2016. Hassan Ammar AP/Press Association Images. All rights reserved.
The images emerging from the divided city of Aleppo in the last days of December 2016 showed a total contrast. In the western zone, as the Syrian army and its allies rapidly advanced on rebel-held neighbourhoods, the streets were filled with civilians and military together carrying Syrian flags and celebrating victory with jubilant cries of “Syria of Assad”. For them, as many Aleppo residents announced to news cameras, their city had finally been “liberated”.
To the east and south, where the remaining fighters and civilians were surrounded in a tiny area of a few square kilometres, the video footage was dramatically different: of families trying to escape neighbourhoods completely devastated after months of intensive bombing, of social-media activists circulating news about young men being arrested and voicing fears of execution, and of buses waiting to transport people – if they were "lucky" – to regions under rebel control.
