A snapshot of life in rebel-held east Aleppo

A snapshot of life in rebel-held east Aleppo
Video: Supplies in rebel-held Aleppo are running low, and with homes destroyed streets have become makeshift abodes.
2 min read
21 September, 2016

Destitute Syrian family

The United Nations announced its suspension of aid distribution inside Syria after a deadly attack targeted a joint UN-Syrian Arab Red Crescent convoy in the Aleppo suburb of Urum al-Kubra on Monday night.
Read more here: Deadly Aleppo convoy attack threatens aid distribution in Syria

With no indication that aid will reach the 300,000 inhabitants of rebel-held east Aleppo soon, basic food and medical resources are running low.

Even fuel to light stoves is no longer an affordable commodity forcing locals to use scrap wood and cardboard to light fires in order to cook.

Mohamad Abu Rajab, a medic based in east Aleppo, regularly works 20 hour shifts out of a basement in order to avoid the devastating effects of aerial munitions routinely dropped on the city. In the linked video Rajab relays an everyday scene from a besieged district of the city. 

The video opens to a scene of a family standing on a derelict street surrounded by rubble, the remains of buildings that once stood in the neighbourhood, with Rajab observing "this destitute Syrian family has made the street its bed and the sky its cover."

The camera then pans out to show a woman placing scraps of cardboard into a makeshift fire-burning hob and beginning to cook. At this point Rajab, with a lick of dark humour, comments that the scene at hand is an "international humanitarian kitchen."

Following Monday's attack on Urum al-Kubra a Russian-US brokered ceasefire now appears in tatters.

Speaking to The New Arab Rajab said that people in rebel-held east Aleppo were relying on aid convoys reaching the city.

Without them, and with the area encircled by government forces, on the ground, and in the air, Rajab said that civilians were "trapped".