As forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad take full control of formerly rebel-held parts of East Aleppo, the full extent of the destruction in Syria’s largest city is only just coming to light. Social media has been filled with harrowing before and after images of the northern Syrian city, one of the oldest continually inhabited towns in the world.
In particular, the Aleppo-based Olympia restaurant has gained recent attention by sharing an album of striking photos comparing locations in the east of the city before the outbreak of civil war five years ago, and now.
Across 133 striking pictures, Facebook users can really get a concrete idea of what has been lost as a result of this conflict. Here are ten of the most shocking comparisons:
Aleppo Citadel, a site whose history dates back to 3000 BC.
A street in front of the Citadel:
The Umayyad Mosque, founded during early Islam. Its eleventh century minaret was destroyed in 2013:
Bab al-Janin District:
Souqs in the Old City
Al-Hatab Square
Armenian Catholic Church
The Canadian Hospital
Many on Twitter have also been sharing images of how life in the city once was:
You're probably only seeing pics of bombed #Aleppo, do go & checkout the before & after pics... pic.twitter.com/NY3TpgddMp
— Hadiya (@HadiyaWasym) December 14, 2016
Christmas in Aleppo - before the Yanks, Saudis, Turks & Qatar sent in their Jihadis to destroy everything pic.twitter.com/06YpfT4gX8
— Doloroso (@Pyrmha108) December 5, 2016
#Aleppo before the war. pic.twitter.com/jPvBLj7UAu
— M Abid khan Atozai (@AbidAtozai) December 14, 2016
Fighting broke out in Aleppo in July 2012, with the opposition taking control in the east, and the regime retaining a grip on the west. Now the vast majority of the east of the city has returned to government control.
With more than 2.3 million residents, Aleppo is larger in population than the capital of Damascus, and had been the industrial and financial heart of the country prior to the outbreak of the conflict.
RA
