Aleppo is the story of unimaginable violence and our collective shame

It has been reported that at last, the four-year-old Battle of Aleppo, also known as “Syria’s Stalingrad”, has reached a potential end, with the rebel forces surrendering to Bashar al-Assad’s army, that was aided by the military coalition of Russia, Iran and Shi’ite armed forces.

Reuters reported that “rebel resistance in the Syrian city of Aleppo ended on Tuesday [December 13] after years of fighting and months of bitter siege and bombardment that culminated in a bloody retreat, as insurgents agreed to withdraw in a ceasefire”.

Holocaust of our times

However, that comes after tens of thousands of civilians dead, with their bodies strewn on the destroyed streets of Aleppo, one of the oldest cities in the world, and certainly the biggest in Syria, once its financial and cultural capital with a population of 2.5 million.

Intense firing and air raids since October this year has resulted in absolute humanitarian and historical catastrophe, as the world, particularly the United States occupied with a presidential election so torn, simply failed to act.

Civilians, bloggers, journalists and social media users have been constantly live-tweeting and updating the horrors of Aleppo, and it seems this is the first live-cast human catastrophe of an unimaginable scale that the world simply sat on, overcome by its political inertia, rusted by racism towards a set of Islamic people in the Middle East.

“This may be my last video.” As the Syrian army overtook Aleppo, civilians posted their goodbyes to the world online. pic.twitter.com/Z0Ol1QLcgF

— Quartz (@qz) December 14, 2016

This human tragedy, a holocaust of our times, has been recorded by those who either have perished in their resolute struggle to simply live and tell the world what it has been turning a blind eye to, or are still pleading for help, something they are now equally hopeless about, something they know wouldn’t quite come, or come in time.

Residents of Aleppo are bidding their goodbyes on Twitter, saying their “last messages”, calling for help as reports of extrajudicial killings, by rebels as well as Assad’s forces, and from the indiscriminate air raids and artillery shelling, bombs and rockets don’t even spare underground bunkers, surface.

Syria’s Anne Frank

Bana Alabed, a seven-year-old girl in Aleppo who has been tweeting along with her mother Fatemah about the horrors of her city, hasn’t had an update for over 22 hours now. Her last tweet, which has seen of 33,000 retweets, was a heart-wrenching goodbye, much like Anne Frank in the 1940s Auschwitz.

My name is Bana, I'm 7 years old. I am talking to the world now live from East #Aleppo. This is my last moment to either live or die. - Bana

— Bana Alabed (@AlabedBana) December 13, 2016

This systematic massacre of a race of people by a world’s absolute apathy and mindless selfishness is exactly why the 1940s saw the Holocaust and the extermination of Jews in the heart of European civilisation.

The battleground is now West Asia and North Africa, which lie in ruins, thanks to American hijacking of a popular revolt and completely destroying the countries and the people.

Ceasefire brokered by Russia

Though there was a deal that has been reached to evacuate rebels and civilians from Aleppo, no one is sure whether there’s any truth to the intention of the Bashar al-Assad regime, and whether Vladimir Putin’s word to the stranded millions of Aleppo, each of whom have lost their dear ones, friends, children, lovers, husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, mean anything at all.

Russia and Turkey have facilitated the deal, but Bashar al-Assad may not show any mercy towards rebels who in turn have used civilians as human shields, and have butchered escapees when they fleeing the bombings.

Assad’s brutalities

In fact, Assad’s troops have “shot on sight” almost 80 civilians as they were combing through parts of Aleppo, clearing them from rebel stronghold, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has said.

Plus, even after the “liberation”/”fall” of Aleppo, because there isn’t a consensus yet as the rebels were aided by US-propped militias in the region, what fate awaits the civilians, and whether the hundreds of thousands internal refugees at the mercy of Assad would at all have a normal life ever again.

It’s obvious that a massive witch-hunt and purging of those with anti-Assad sentiments, with or without proactive role in the resistance, would take place shortly after official declaration of the results of the battle takes place.

High level of detention, exile and ghettoisation of Aleppo’s people is expected.

American incompetence

Though the Syrian crisis is a peculiar and hideous result of the Russia versus United States acrimony and rivalry, Aleppo is its most unfathomably cruel fruit.

Though Obama regime has washed its hands off Syria now, the failure of Hillary Clinton to become the president of America means Russia now has a free run in Donald Trump occupying the White House.

The Syrian crisis has been protracted for four long years, and now Aleppo is the sign of our times when the complete meltdown of humanity gets live-tweeted and no one outside the “conflict zone” really bothers.

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