Incinerating Dissent

Aleppo, once a hub of Syrian Sunni commerce harking back to time immemorial has been starkly, grotesquely transformed. Large parts of the city, Syria's largest urban area, and one of the world's most historical place-names is barely recognizable. Half of all the homes in some of its neighbourhoods are now rubble. The once-busy streets of people bustling about are now completely devoid of their presence.

Activists said more than 70 people were killed when barrel bombs hit Aleppo in mid-December

A year ago the area swelled with refugees seeking haven there from other parts of the country. A year ago the population of residents and refugees alike had numbered around three million. None are left. Since March 2011, cities and suburbs in Syria have become ghost places. First Dera'a in the south, then Baba Amr in Homs, and then Qusayr, representing a signal victory for Bashar al-Assad's Alawite Baathist regime.

The biggest prize of all, though is Aleppo. Once home to an ancient Christian minority, while at the same time a centre for conservative Islam. Somehow, everyone managed to get along, to live together, to acknowledge one another's presence, to accept their historical right of residence. To get to the rebels who had set up headquarters there, the regime assaulted the area driving out the residents.

Those who died in their huge numbers were, after all, tribal Sunni deserving of their fate, since they were also rebel supporters by default of birth and sect. This is, after all, the Middle East. Where moderation is a strange Western concept, and tribal realities, clan devotion and sectarian affiliation seal one's fate.

Rebels say government forces have been using barrel bombs in Aleppo for days

Located now in the Turkish city of Gaziantep, a two hours' drive to the north from Aleppo, a group of Aleppan lawyers and civilian activists estimate that between December and the start of March over one thousand barrel bombs were dropped on Aleppo. Barrel bombs are crude containers packed with up to half a tonne of TNT and shrapnel.

They're simply shoved out of the back of helicopters. That group in Gaziantep estimates that about four thousand people were killed by the barrel bombs, just over half of whom have been identified, others completely consumed, incinerated, unidentifiable. In January around 30 barrel bombs daily were dropped on the suburbs.

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Men inspect an barrel filled with unexploded bombs dropped from a Syrian government helicopter in Aleppo, Syria. Photo: AP

 

The suburbs -- mostly where poor Sunnis seeking work, having come from the countryside -- became rebel headquarters locations. They are now 80% in ruins. As for the residents, 90% of those who once lived there have been forced to flee in terror. Some migrated with their families to tent encampments in the countryside; internal refugees. Others went east to neighbouring Raqqa province, now held by the Islamic State of Iraq & Al-Sham.

Most of them, though made the trek to Turkey. Once the refugee camps set up in Turkey were better provisioned. Now the border town of Kilis is full of Syrian children begging on the streets for cash and food. Families live under concrete blocks in unfinished buildings, tarpaulins dividing space into makeshift homes. The men venture to the town square mornings hoping to be hired as casual labourers.

Some families are forced to sleep with little to protect them from the elements. Or they seek night time rest on the floor of the bus station in the town.