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Goodbye From Aleppo Messages Continue, Aleppo ‘Now A Synonym For Hell’ As Evacuations Fail [Graphic Content]

By Christine Beswick
Published on: 11:13 PST, Dec 16, 2016

Residents of Aleppo, Syria, are saying goodbye in many ways this week. The Guardian reports that a ceasefire deal that has been reached is finally leading to an evacuation of the city fraught with turmoil by Syrian-backed rebels aligned with Russia and Turkey. This is leading many Aleppo residents to leave goodbye messages on the walls of their city as they leave.

It is a ceasefire initially resisted by Russian President Vladimir Putin, but the evacuation has gone on as scheduled. However, it is not going well. Reports of executions and stalled convoys have been coming out of Aleppo since the evacuation started, reports CBC News.

As the horrors in Aleppo continue, Twitter has become a haven for many to leave a more grisly form of goodbye, as “Goodbye forever from Aleppo” messages prevail more frequently than “goodbye to Aleppo” messages.

Today, as the Inquisitr reported, in a press conference from the White House briefing room, President Obama addressed the nation, and indeed many others, when discussing the atrocities happening in Aleppo. CBC News reports that he said the world was united in horror at what was happening in Aleppo and accused the Assad regime, along with its allies Russia and Turkey, of “deliberately surrounding, besieging, and starving innocent civilians.”

[Image by Manu Brabo/AP Images]

The situation in Aleppo has now left many cities in “rubble and dust” and a ceasefire was said to have begun a mass evacuation of any remaining living citizens. But those evacuation convoys are being suspended, with reports of shooting at evacuation convoys, reports CBC News.

The UN Security Council held a closed-door emergency meeting on the crisis with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon saying,

“The carnage in Syria remains a gaping hole in the global conscience. Aleppo is now a synonym for hell.”

The ceasefire was reached on Wednesday evening, the Guardian reports. Evacuation buses were said to have begun leaving Thursday, and as they did, many Syrians left goodbye messages to Aleppo.

But they may have been in vain thus far as CBC News reports that the Syrian government has been pulling the buses out or opening fire on the convoys carrying Syrian refugees. A CBC journalist in Syria covering the evacuation said,

“Both sides are blaming each other. We knew all along how fragile the ceasefire is. We see again how real the problems are there.”

The roads the buses are supposed to be travelling on are also under fire. A member for the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told the CBC that roads had been cut or shelled mid-evacuation.

There are reportedly 15,000 to 40,000 civilians still inside the Iran-backed enclave waiting for evacuation, and are said to be with 6,000 fighters, reports the CBC. But a “high number” of women and children still need to get out, and many are starving.

CBC reports that the evacuations are the end of the civil war as the Syrian rebels take their most important stronghold, eastern Aleppo. As children and women in his country starve to death, Assad compared the historic victory to the birth of Christ and the revelation of the Qu’ran.

Meanwhile, also on Friday, CBC News reports that a 7-year-old girl wore a belt of explosives going into a Damascus police station. Her belt was triggered by remote and she was immediately killed.

But right in Aleppo, goodbye messages and the calls for help continue. The Guardian reports that one doctor left a voicemail from his besieged area saying,

“Save us, people. Save us, people, world, anyone who has even a bit of humanity. We beg you, we beg you, the dead and wounded are in the streets and people’s homes have collapsed on top of them. Save us. Save us.”

A nurse told the Guardian by voicemail that ambulances had stopped coming to Aleppo for some time. He said,

“A lot of shells and bombs are falling on us, no one can walk in the streets. Hundreds of shells and rockets. Please let us stay alive. Please pressure the regime to keep us safe. Please, from Aleppo, the last call. The medical situation is so bad. No ambulances, no cars, it’s a very horrible situation in our neighborhoods. Please, let our scream arrive to the whole world.”

Samantha Power, the United States ambassador to the United Nations, told the security council this week what President Obama told the world today, that Russia and Iran bore the responsibility of what had happened in Aleppo. She also rebuked the Syrian allies, harshly saying,

“Are you incapable of shame? Is there no execution of a child that gets under your skin? Is there literally nothing that shames you?”

A 7-year-old girl named Bana has become “Twitter famous” for her chronic and consistent goodbye messages from Aleppo online. The world that is watching her fears that one day little Bana will stop tweeting.

Bana’s verified Twitter account is managed by her mother Fatemah, who is always saying goodbye in her tweets. Fatemah’s most recent tweet came early this morning at approximately 7 a.m. Eastern Standard Time and heralded the halt of the ceasefire, begging the world for help.

Just under one hour later her daughter Bana wrote simply, “Please save us now.”

[Featured Image by Abdullah al-Yassin/AP Images]

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