The Aleppo souk burns

Saigon

Gold Member
May 4, 2012
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Helsinki, Finland
I was so sad to hear this morning that one of the great sites of the Middle East has been detroyed, with Aleppo's souk burned to the ground.

For anyone who has been there - and I guess several posters here will have been - the market was one of the greatest of its kind, rivalled only by Cairo, Marrakesh and Damascus. It was labrynthine and smoky, mysterious and fascinating.

You could buy anything in that market - from pistachio ice cream and bread to car parts, clothes and fabric.

I will always remember talking to a man in a white dejallabah while my wife looked at jewellry. Without breaking off from our conversation he pulled a fake Rolex watch from somewhere in his robes, pointed at it and said "Made in Switzerland. I bought it for US$10.

Read about the souk fires here:
BBC News - Syria conflict: Aleppo's souk burns as battles rage
 
Aleppo souk burns .......


Ya might want to put some ointment on that before it gets infected.

I got it once, and now it hurts when I pee.
 
France wants to take Aleppo situation to UN Security Council...

France wants urgent U.N. Security Council meeting on Aleppo
November 29, 2016 - France called on Tuesday for an immediate United Nations Security Council meeting to discuss the situation in Aleppo and said it would press for a U.N. resolution to punish the use of chemical weapons in Syria.
Speaking ahead of a meeting in the Belarusian capital Minsk on the Ukrainian crisis, Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said Syrian government forces and their allies would not resolve the Syrian conflict by carrying out one of the "biggest massacres on a civilian population since World War Two." "This (Security Council) meeting would have to find a way to deal with the humanitarian situation and see how we can get aid in. We have to find a way," Ayrault told Reuters. Previous such meetings have failed to end hostilities.

French U.N. Ambassador Francois Delattre and British U.N. Ambassador Matthew Rycroft said they were jointly requesting the council meeting on Aleppo. They said they hoped to schedule the meeting for later on Tuesday or Wednesday and want U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura, U.N. aid chief Stephen O'Brien and U.N. children's agency UNICEF to brief the 15-member council. The Syrian army and its allies announced the capture of a large swathe of eastern Aleppo from rebels on Monday in an accelerating attack that threatens to crush the opposition in its most important urban stronghold.

Capturing eastern Aleppo would be the biggest victory for President Bashar al-Assad since the start of the uprising against him in 2011, restoring his control over the whole city apart from a Kurdish-held area that has not fought against him. Retaking Aleppo would shore up Assad's grip over the main population centers of western Syria where he and his allies have focused their firepower, while much of the rest of the country remains outside his control. France, a backer of the anti-Assad opposition, is pushing for a Security Council resolution to impose sanctions on Syria for the use of chemical weapons. Ayrault said France and Britain had taken over drafting the resolution from the United States.

An inquiry by the United Nations and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has already found that government forces were responsible for three chlorine gas attacks and that Islamic State militants had used mustard gas. "We are now the penholders. We are not giving up. There have to be sanctions," Ayrault said before meeting his Russian, German and Ukrainian counterparts. Ayrault said a meeting in Paris around Dec. 10 of countries opposed to Assad, including the United States, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, would discuss how to find a political solution to the crisis.

France wants urgent U.N. Security Council meeting on Aleppo
 
France wants to take Aleppo situation to UN Security Council...

France wants urgent U.N. Security Council meeting on Aleppo
November 29, 2016 - France called on Tuesday for an immediate United Nations Security Council meeting to discuss the situation in Aleppo and said it would press for a U.N. resolution to punish the use of chemical weapons in Syria.
Speaking ahead of a meeting in the Belarusian capital Minsk on the Ukrainian crisis, Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said Syrian government forces and their allies would not resolve the Syrian conflict by carrying out one of the "biggest massacres on a civilian population since World War Two." "This (Security Council) meeting would have to find a way to deal with the humanitarian situation and see how we can get aid in. We have to find a way," Ayrault told Reuters. Previous such meetings have failed to end hostilities.

French U.N. Ambassador Francois Delattre and British U.N. Ambassador Matthew Rycroft said they were jointly requesting the council meeting on Aleppo. They said they hoped to schedule the meeting for later on Tuesday or Wednesday and want U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura, U.N. aid chief Stephen O'Brien and U.N. children's agency UNICEF to brief the 15-member council. The Syrian army and its allies announced the capture of a large swathe of eastern Aleppo from rebels on Monday in an accelerating attack that threatens to crush the opposition in its most important urban stronghold.

Capturing eastern Aleppo would be the biggest victory for President Bashar al-Assad since the start of the uprising against him in 2011, restoring his control over the whole city apart from a Kurdish-held area that has not fought against him. Retaking Aleppo would shore up Assad's grip over the main population centers of western Syria where he and his allies have focused their firepower, while much of the rest of the country remains outside his control. France, a backer of the anti-Assad opposition, is pushing for a Security Council resolution to impose sanctions on Syria for the use of chemical weapons. Ayrault said France and Britain had taken over drafting the resolution from the United States.

An inquiry by the United Nations and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has already found that government forces were responsible for three chlorine gas attacks and that Islamic State militants had used mustard gas. "We are now the penholders. We are not giving up. There have to be sanctions," Ayrault said before meeting his Russian, German and Ukrainian counterparts. Ayrault said a meeting in Paris around Dec. 10 of countries opposed to Assad, including the United States, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, would discuss how to find a political solution to the crisis.

France wants urgent U.N. Security Council meeting on Aleppo
"Oh no! They saved 80.000 people from our terrorists! Let´s hit 'em hard! Let´s accuse them of what we just invent and see what the outcome will be."

Outcome: Total liberation of Aleppo. Western dogs foaming powerlessly.
 
Oh No!, dey killed Anas the clown...

Syria's Aleppo loses clown who warmed war-torn hearts
November 30, 2016 — When war is constant, it can be easy to lose sight of how much a single death can matter. But the passing of one committed social worker will be especially devastating to his community in Aleppo.
The 24-year-old Anas al-Basha was a center director at Space for Hope, one of many unheralded local initiatives operating against the odds to provide civil society services to Syria's war-torn opposition areas. He was also a joker who dressed as a clown to cheer up the Aleppo's traumatized children. He was killed Tuesday in a presumed Russian or government missile strike on the Mashhad neighborhood in the besieged, eastern side of the city.

In a now largely bombed-out enclave, Space for Hope supports 12 schools and four psycho-social support centers in eastern Aleppo, providing counseling and financial support for 365 children who have lost one or both parents. Many of the staff of 34 learned social work on the job as the country's five-year civil war unfolded. Anas's supervisor, Samar Hijazi, said she will remember him as a friend who loved to work with children. "He would act out skits for the children to break the walls between them," she said.

Anas's parents left city before the government sealed its siege of the rebel-held eastern districts last summer. He chose to stay on, and had his salary sent to their place of stay in the countryside. The siege has been immensely trying for the men and woman who shouldered the burden of looking after Aleppo's traumatized children. "All of us in this field (of childcare) are exhausted, and we have to find strength to provide psychological support and continue with our work," said Hijazi.

Space for Hope has suspended its operations in Aleppo for the time being. A renewed government assault on the city's eastern neighborhood has brought shelling and bombardment at an unprecedented rate, displacing tens of thousands of civilians in the span of four days and killing dozens of civilians daily. Anas is survived by his wife, who remains trapped in Aleppo. They married two months ago.

Syria's Aleppo loses clown who warmed war-torn hearts

See also:

UN warns of 'giant graveyard' as thousands flee Aleppo fighting
Thursday 1st December, 2016: The UN's aid chief warned on Wednesday (Nov 30) that Aleppo risked becoming a "giant graveyard" after more than 50,000 people were reported to have fled intense fighting between government and rebel forces.
As the Security Council held emergency talks on the fighting in New York, Syria's opposition urged the UN to take immediate steps to protect civilians. A government offensive to retake all of Aleppo has pounded the city in recent days, with shelling of an opposition-controlled area reported to have killed at least 26 civilians. Artillery shells rained down on one southeastern rebel-held district. The motionless body of a girl lay crumpled in the street, her arm severed and her head pierced by shrapnel. Rescue volunteers carried her body away on a motorcycle.

Speaking to the special Security Council session by video-link from London, Stephen O'Brien, the UN humanitarian chief, appealed for action to stop the fighting. "For the sake of humanity we call on - we plead - with the parties and those with influence to do everything in their power to protect civilians and enable access to the besieged part of eastern Aleppo before it becomes one giant graveyard," he said.

Civilians have poured out of the besieged rebel-held east, battered by air strikes and heavy artillery fire by the advancing forces of President Bashar al-Assad. On a visit to Paris, a local council leader east Aleppo called Wednesday for safe passage for desperate civilians, warning the UN would be "signing the death warrant of 250,000 people" if it failed to act. "Let the civilians leave, protect the civilians, put in place a safe corridor so they can leave," Brita Hagi Hassan said after meeting French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault.

Government troops and allied fighters have seized around 40 per cent of the rebel-held east of Aleppo since they began an operation to recapture all of the city just over a fortnight ago. They now fully control the city's northeast and pressed their offensive Wednesday on Aleppo's southeastern edges, advancing in the Sheikh Saeed district, according to state media. The loss of Aleppo would be the biggest blow for Syria's opposition since the conflict began in March 2011 with anti-government protests, before spiralling into a civil war.

'BARBARIC OFFENSIVE'
 
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