Letter from Aleppo

East Aleppo, the heart of Syria’s peaceful revolution, is besieged on all sides and facing unprecedented levels of attacks from the sky as the Syrian regime and Russia moves to ‘exterminate’ all those that remain.

In the last five days all hospitals, including the last children’s hospital, have been bombed out of operation. All White Helmets centres have been destroyed. East Aleppo’s trapped 275,000 residents are living in terror as thousands of missiles, barrel bombs, and mortars rain down on them.

Despite the brutality, the medics, rescue workers, parents, and entire communities refuse to give up. They have rebuilt hospitals time and time again, saved families from under the rubble of non-stop air strikes, and opened schools and libraries underground.

Aleppo, one of the birthplaces of civilisation, has been failed utterly by the leaders of the 'civilised world' who stand by idly and watch this massacre unfold.

[written by a resident]
Daily Dispatch: “No words can describe what we experience and suffer everyday”

Aoum Obaidah, is a mother of three and teacher at an orphanage in Aleppo city. The orphanage looks after 47 children. She writes to you about what life is like for the 90,000 children living under siege in Aleppo.

“I wish the children in Aleppo could breath clean air, free of the smell of gunpowder, chemicals or even death.

The children of Aleppo don't go to school anymore, everything has been destroyed, and even if a school still exists, it’s too dangerous for children to attend.

The children of Aleppo will die eventually, either from the cold, lack of food or medicine. They will die because they don’t have milk or even a piece of bread.

Assad and the Russian's bombs do not differentiate between a stone or a human. I can’t protect my children from the bombs. If a day passes without losing one of them, it is a miracle to me.

When you see a hungry child walking barefoot, then you know he is from Aleppo. When you see a child crying for his mother or father, lost under the rubble, then you know he is living under siege in Aleppo. When you see a child bleeding to death, tears filling his or her eyes, then you know it is a child from Aleppo.

My message to all mothers in the world is, learn and teach others how to keep your children safe, not hungry.

And whatever happens, never let them go.  Always hold them because you never know when you might lose them."