Not everyone celebrates Christmas - although everyone, believer or not or of another faith, knows it is supposed to be a time of goodwill, peace and putting out a hand to one's neighbour.
Reflect, then, at this supposed time of goodwill, on the plight of the children of Aleppo, so graphically captured in this piece "For Innocents Lost" from Der Spiegel.
"The children of Aleppo have ears trained for the noises that accompany death, especially those who play in Salaheddin's last playground. It lies directly on the front. The next street over is in the firing line of regime snipers, which is why a barrier has been erected at the intersection next to the playground. The playground wall facing that side of the city is like a borderline between life and death. The odor of decomposing bodies sometimes hangs in the air nearby.
Peculiar rules for survival have been established in Syria. One of those is that the closer you are to the front, the lower the risk is from "barrel bombs," those steel containers full of explosives and metal balls that can weigh up to one ton. These bombs are thrown out of helicopters flying at an altitude of thousands of meters and are frequently blown off course by the wind. The helicopters avoid places where government troops and rebel fighters are separated by only 100 meters. And here, a place separated from the other side by just a single housing block, not even tank shells are a risk.
Everywhere else in the eastern half of this metropolis, a city that once had over 2 million residents, death rains down from the sky more often than ever before. The number of barrel bombs has doubled since October and even tripled in other cities in northern Syria. And once again, the Syrian army is on the cusp of surrounding the rebels in Aleppo."
Reflect, then, at this supposed time of goodwill, on the plight of the children of Aleppo, so graphically captured in this piece "For Innocents Lost" from Der Spiegel.
"The children of Aleppo have ears trained for the noises that accompany death, especially those who play in Salaheddin's last playground. It lies directly on the front. The next street over is in the firing line of regime snipers, which is why a barrier has been erected at the intersection next to the playground. The playground wall facing that side of the city is like a borderline between life and death. The odor of decomposing bodies sometimes hangs in the air nearby.
Peculiar rules for survival have been established in Syria. One of those is that the closer you are to the front, the lower the risk is from "barrel bombs," those steel containers full of explosives and metal balls that can weigh up to one ton. These bombs are thrown out of helicopters flying at an altitude of thousands of meters and are frequently blown off course by the wind. The helicopters avoid places where government troops and rebel fighters are separated by only 100 meters. And here, a place separated from the other side by just a single housing block, not even tank shells are a risk.
Everywhere else in the eastern half of this metropolis, a city that once had over 2 million residents, death rains down from the sky more often than ever before. The number of barrel bombs has doubled since October and even tripled in other cities in northern Syria. And once again, the Syrian army is on the cusp of surrounding the rebels in Aleppo."
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