Over the past four years, the Aleppo I fell in love with has ceased to exist, its slow and painful four-year-long death now dramatically accelerated by Russian smart bombs and Syrian regime dumb bombs.
If Aleppo were a person, this would be the point where we would pray for a swift end to their suffering. But Aleppo isn’t only one person, it’s a besieged town of 300,000, a disgrace to the conscience of the civilized world. Doctors are working in conditions resembling a slaughterhouse more than a hospital, but still saving lives. Children are burning tires to cloud the skies with smoke and obstruct the vision of Putin’s relentless jets and their soulless pilots. While they — eight-year-old kids — stand up to Putin’s air force and their crimes against humanity, the Western world — once again — has done nothing.
“We had gotten used to hell on earth,” one friend inside the city texted me two days ago. “Now they’re even bombing our hell to pieces.”
In the past days, while bombs were raining on the ruins of Aleppo, I have called, emailed or otherwise contacted every person in politics I know to voice not my concern, as our diplomats would say, but my outrage over what is happening — or, more accurately, what is not happening.
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The Aleppo I loved wasn’t exactly peaceful, it was already haunted by constant airstrikes, shelling, Scud missiles, snipers and the nerve-wracking hiss of low-flying Sukhoi jets, but still it was a better place than it is today.
It was summer 2013. The few remaining trees of Aleppo were covered with gray dust. Explosion after explosion had turned building after building into rubble. When one of the few remaining trash trucks rumbled past, it would shake the trees and send up little clouds of that dull dust that was made up of buildings and memories and furniture and bones.
Every politician I contacted gave me a version of the same answer: It’s awful, we know, but there is just nothing we can do about it.
In the morning my colleague and friend Yasser and I would stop somewhere along the road in Aleppo for coffee that was sweet and oily. We bought fruit and those intensely sweet pastries small bakeries still made. Sometimes we picked up hummus or figs or cherries. We’d drive around to talk to the people who were still holding out, looking for tales to tell from this city of war.
We sat with them on plastic chairs in the streets while their kids played football. We drank endless cups of tea. In no peaceful environment have people ever shared so much with me as they did in Aleppo.
Syrian civil defence volunteers and rescuers remove a baby from under the rubble of a destroyed building following an air strike in Aleppo, in April 2016 | Ameer Alhalbi/AFP via Getty Images
One summer day we zig-zagged through the Old City with its overwhelmingly beautiful buildings and small palaces. Back then, even under constant bombardment, their walls seemed indestructible to me, though it turns out they were not. One moment, we were running from corner to corner to avoid snipers. The next, we were standing in front of an even more stunning doorway.
Our guides showed us the square of Umayyaden mosque, its once proud minaret already collapsed and in ruins from the shelling. I walked the high-ceilinged rooms of the mosque, sinking into the serenity of the place, while gunfire could be heard only meters away. Somehow the sound of detonating shells couldn’t pierce the peacefulness of those rooms.
Aleppo was a wonderful city of great people and great stones. It was a city several thousands of years old. I thought it would last forever.
I guess I was wrong. Aleppo is dying.
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I don’t expect the Syrian regime or the Russians to stop their relentless extermination campaign. But I would expect us, my own government, the EU, the United States, the so-called Western world, to call this crime a crime, these killers killers.
But our politicians cannot even bring themselves to call out the Russian president. While Syrians try to protect their battered city and their lives, our politicians hide behind a smokescreen of meaningless words.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier recently called Russia a “supporter of the Syrian army.” While this is technically correct, the statement completely disregards the fact that Russia is not only a “supporter” but a highly active participant in this war, targeting civilian infrastructure with its own jets every single day.
Every politician I contacted gave me a version of the same answer: It’s awful, we know, but there is just nothing we can do about it.
We have collectively failed to prevent the next Rwanda, the next Srebrenica, and I know in my heart that we will all be ashamed of ourselves a few years from now.
Every single one of them ruled out denouncing Russia for its war crimes, citing some higher strategic interest. But what is more important than protecting peace, democracy, the values we stand for? They said they feared “military escalation.” The people of Aleppo may ask how the slaughter could possibly escalate any further.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry mumbled in a press conference that the U.S. could maybe, possibly, change policy if the slaughter doesn’t stop. His exact quote is a priceless example of deadly, aimless pseudo-diplomacy: “My hope would be that somewhere in early August — the first week or so, somewhere there — we would be in a position to be able to stand up in front of you and tell you what we’re able to do with the hopes that it can make a difference to the lives of people in Syria and to the course of the war.”
Not exactly the kind of statement that would reassure people living under carpet bombardment. Then again, who, after all the crossed red lines, believes in American statements anymore?
I have argued for a no-fly-zone to protect civilians in Syria for four years. Despite the many risks involved I still believe it would be the only justifiable course of action. After witnessing and covering Aleppo — and the courage of its people — for so long I wish I could have done something for them.
Instead, we have collectively failed to prevent the next Rwanda, the next Srebrenica, and I know in my heart that we will all be ashamed of ourselves a few years from now.
I have lost all hope that anyone will come to Aleppo’s rescue. The messages I receive from people in the besieged city break my heart. They’re hopeless, disillusioned notes of goodbye. All I can answer them at this point is that I’m sorry. And farewell.
Julian Reichelt is editor-in-chief of Bild.de.