“Do certain images of injured kids stay in my mind more than others? If you asked me that two years ago, then I could probably give an answer. But today, after witnessing the huge number of massacres that I have, it’s very hard to think of one specific instance. It’s become a daily occurrence. Now images stay in my mind for a short while before they slip away, to take their place alongside all the others. My own personal graveyard.” AFP Photographer Abd Doumany

Life in the City

“Young children love animals in general. They were really happy in the cat shelter… playing with the cats.” Photo: Mohammad Alaa Aljaleel

A crowd-sourced animal sanctuary in east Aleppo teaches compassion: ‘To love the small, weak cats is to love everything’

In Aleppo, many mosques have opened their doors to families fleeing the latest fighting but they are full now. These families stay in an open area near Raees Mosque in western Aleppo city, since there is no room left inside after the latest wave of attacks.
Photo: UNICEF/UN027711/Al-Issa

Keeping water flowing in Aleppo

Recently damaged hospital. Photo: HOSAM AL-JABLAWI

Aleppo’s Deteriorating Medical Sector

medicsunderfire.org

Open letter to Secretary John Kerry and President Obama,

The repeated targeting of healthcare workers and hospitals by the Russian and Syrian governments are war crimes. We call on you to give Syria’s heroic healthcare workers and the communities they serve a zone free from bombing to ensure their protection. The international community has agreed the bombs need to stop. The resolutions are in place. They simply need to be enforced. Over 9,525 have signed this letter. To add your signature, go to: Medicsunderfire.org.

The Economist reported that Syria’s president, a former doctor, is turning hospitals into death traps.

Syrians queue up to buy bread in a rebel held neighborhood on July 12, 2016.
PHOTO AFP/ KARAM AL-MASRI

Aleppian journalist Zaina Erhaim shares a personal account of life in the city in Chasing bananas, dodging bombs: Life and death in besieged Aleppo.

Burning tires in Aleppo to create smoke cover from airstrikes. August 2016. Photo: Abdalrhman Ismail/Reuters

Watching My Beloved Aleppo Rip Itself Apart. Lina Sergie Attar is a founder and the chief executive of the Karam Foundation, which provides humanitarian aid to Syrians.

The White Helmets were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. To support their nomination, click here. The AlJazeera documentary above was filmed before their nomination.

Reconstruction

A boy uses prosthetic arm provided by ROW. Image via Refugee Open Ware.

Wanda compiled a list of 10 initiatives using tech to prevent a lost generation of Syrians, creating educational and employment opportunities for refugees uprooted from their country struggling reboot their lives.

The post Aleppo Weekly – August 11-September 1 appeared first on The Aleppo Project.

Voices from Aleppo

Islam Mardini published a series of recent photographs shot from regime-controlled areas near the frontline.

“Heavenly Space of Humanity.” Photo: Islam Mardini.

Mr. Mardini, an Aleppo native, won a “Spirit of Humanity” award in 2015 for his photography.

“Aleppo is known for two main things: the food and the music,” Ghuydar Bashmaf

Photo: Ridwan Adhami for Islamic Relief USA.

Ghuydar Bashmaf is a well-known, U.S.-based nasheed singer who recently performed a public recitation of the Qur’an at Muhammad Ali’s funeral. Islamic Relief USA featured his memories of food and music during Ramadan in Aleppo on Day 14 of its 30 faces of Ramadan series.

Food

“Every family would send a child before maghrib time to the neighborhood shop to get fresh falafel, hummus, and atayef. The most important thing is the atayef,” he said, remembering this special Ramadan pancake stuffed with ricotta cheese or walnuts and fried. “The rich people fill them with pistachios,” he added. Another popular Halabi dessert is mshabek, a fried dough formed into interesting circular shapes and soaked in sweet syrup.

Music

“The music is special in Ramadan,” he said. “They dedicate a certain portion of every night to singing the qaseedahs, long structured poems praising God.”

Syriac Orthodox Archbishop Gregorios Ibrahim of Aleppo. He has been missing since April 2013. Photo: Aid to the Church in Need.

During Ramadan, the Syriac Orthodox church is offering meals to poor families in Sulaimaniyah.

It is “a simple gesture aimed at expressing solidarity between people of different religious backgrounds with the hope that it will, in time, help to restore the peaceful coexistence that existed among Syria’s various religious and ethnic communities before the war.” The Archdiocese of Aleppo.

Aleppo’s Heritage

Image: 3Dmeans.com

Panoramic image-based modeling for the Umayyad Mosque of Aleppo.

The Conflict

Click here for the latest Aleppo Conflict Timeline updates, maps and charts.

The children’s hospital in eastern Aleppo reopened after being hit by an airstrike earlier this month.

Al-Qatiriji, Aleppo. Image: HRW/ (c) 2016 Digital Globe/Next View

Human Rights Watch called on the United States and Russia to investigate recent attacks in Aleppo.

“As fighting escalates again in Aleppo, the US and Russia should keep their commitment to investigate, to maintain their credibility.” Nadim Houry, Deputy Middle East Director

Photo: ANHA

In mid-June, civilians in ISIS-controlled Manbij fled what appears to be an imminent PYD-affiliated Syrian Democratic Force attack on the town. Activists said that decreasing stocks of food and diesel combined with an International Coalition airstrike on a wheat storage facility raised fears that bakeries would cease to operate.

Syrian refugee: ‘Five of my family were shot’ at Turkish border. BBC

Activists report that Turkish border guards have killed several Syrian civilians attempting to cross the border to safety.

The post Aleppo Weekly- June 13-21 appeared first on The Aleppo Project.

AFP Photo by KARAM AL-MASRI

A Syrian man carries the body of a child following a reported military strike by government forces in the rebel-controlled Bustan al-Qasr district of the northern city of Aleppo on June 20, 2015.

AFP Photo by KARAM AL-MASRI

Syrian rescue workers look up to the sky in search of warplanes, on June 14, 2015, in the Jallum neighbourhood in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, following a reported barrel bomb attack by Syrian government forces. Regime barrel bombs -- crude weapons made of containers packed with explosives -- have often struck schools, hospitals, and markets in Syria, despite condemnation by rights groups.

AFP Photo by KARAM AL-MASRI

A man stands on a pick-up truck loaded with the belongings of a family moving from one district to a safer one on June 8, 2015 in the rebel-held side of Syria's northern city of Aleppo. A couple and their five children were killed overnight in Aleppo province in strikes by the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group, a monitor said.

AFP Photo by KARAM AL-MASRI

Syrian men help an injured person after a reported barrel bomb attack by Syrian government forces hit an open market in the northern city of Aleppo, on June 3, 2015, killing and injuring people. Regime barrel bombs -- crude weapons made of containers packed with explosives -- have often struck schools, hospitals, and markets in Syria.

AFP Photo by KARAM AL-MASRI

Syrian children play on a swing as they gather to celebrate the first day of Eid al-Fitr, that marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadan in the city of Aleppo on July 28, 2014. Six children were among at least 15 civilians killed in overnight bomb attacks by government and rebel forces in the divided city of Aleppo, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

AFP Photo by KARAM AL-MASRI

Syrian demonstrators rally in support of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) calling for them to unite behind a unified command system in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on November 11, 2014. Syria's government has responded with "constructive interest" to a UN proposal to suspend fighting in the second city of Aleppo, UN envoy Staffan de Mistura said.

AFP Photo by KARAM AL-MASRI

A man holds his phone in an attempt to get a better phone signal in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on November 26, 2014. According to Fabrice Balanche, a French university lecturer and specialist on Syria, only around one million residents remain out of Aleppo's pre-war population of 2.5 million.

AFP Photo by KARAM AL-MASRI

Rebel fighters fire a machine gun on the frontline during the battle against pro-government forces for control of the Handarat region, located just north of Aleppo, on December 18, 2014. Handarat has been divided since a rebel offensive in summer 2012 between loyalist sectors in the west of the city and insurgent-held territory in the east.

AFP Photo by KARAM AL-MASRI

Men ride a motorcycle through a hole in a wall as they escape sniper fire in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on January 30, 2015. The ancient city of Aleppo has been fought over mercilessly since a popular uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began in 2011.

AFP Photo by KARAM AL-MASRI

A young boy walks past a makeshift barricade made of wreckages of buses to obstruct the view of regime snipers and to keep people safe, on March 14, 2015 in the rebel-held side of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo. Syria's conflict enters its fifth year on March 15, 2015 with the regime emboldened by shifting international attention and a growing humanitarian crisis exacerbated by the rise of the Islamic State group.

Karam al-Masri’s story is both familiar in war torn Aleppo and extraordinary. A second-year law student in 2011, he has emerged as one of the most widely distributed and acclaimed news photographers covering the destruction of the city. His is a common story of the Syrian revolution where many young people had to leave their educations and professions to take part in some way in the uprising. But Karam’s efforts to document the death of Aleppo has brought him to international attention as a photographer for Agence France-Presse.

“I left university and joined the revolution.” He first started documenting protests and fighting a basic non-professional camera in 2011. Facebook was his main platform until, in 2013, he started working with AFP, photographing the rebel-held east of Aleppo. Since then

Karam explains that “photographers receive ‘special treatment’ when captured by the regime. The regime immediately tries to kill us because it fears cameras more than weapons.” In rebel-held areas where there is no government presence. “Photographers can do their job freely under the Free Syrian Army” Karim said. But there is another force that comes after them—the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS).

ISIS had a significant presence in rebel-held Aleppo from late 2013 until February 2014 when the rebels kicked them out. Karam had his own share of suffering. “I was kidnapped by ISIS in late 2013, tortured and kept alone in a 2×1 m² dark cell for six months. Later I was released in an amnesty.” He explains that, “for ISIS, anyone who uses a camera becomes a traitor. They convicted me of treason for working as a foreign press agency photographer.”

Karam’s main themes of photography are the destruction of Aleppo, daily life and the suffering of those who have stayed behind. “Aleppo is heavily destroyed. There are only four or five neighborhoods where most people can still live. The old city is severely damaged.” Al-Masri participated in shooting a documentary with Aljazeera called “The Death of Aleppo” that tracks the destruction of the city and the impact on the lives of its residents.

Around 350,000 still survive in the east of Aleppo. However, as Karam says, many Aleppians left “because of the hard living conditions including the shortage of basic provisions and daily barrel bombs.” He is determined to stay because, as he says, “this is my city. I was born here, I grew up here and will live here inshallah.”

“I want to continue my education in law when the war is over. Of course, I will continue photographing because now I am best friends with my camera; I take it wherever I go. But [when the war is over] then my pictures will be about beautiful nature and not barrel bombs.”

Hassan Mroue, AFP Middle East and North Africa Photo Manager

“Thanks to photographers like Karam al-Masri, the foreign media has been able to obtain images from rebel-held areas in Syria where foreign journalists stopped going following many incidents kidnapping or killing after mid-2013. Karam’s pictures captured the daily life in Aleppo, people’s suffering and breaking news when government forces bombed neighbourhoods held by opposition fighters in the city.

He was detained by the Islamic State group (IS) in late 2013 and was imprisoned for six months because he was using a camera, which they considered a “tool of infidelity”.

One of his pictures of a child crying after shelling was featured recently in the French publication l’Obs with background information about the photographer and the circumstances in which he took the photo of the Syrian boy with his face covered in dust and traces of his tears following an air strike on the rebel-held Bustan al-Qasr district in the east of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on September 20, 2015.”

The post Interview with Aleppian photographer Karam Al-Masri appeared first on The Aleppo Project.