A story about liberation in the midst of the largest humanitarian crisis since 1945
"My two sisters lived in Eastern Aleppo until the terrorists - the Free Syrian Army (FAS) - occupied their house, threw out all Christians and emptied the houses. My mother and big brother lived in the West...but their house was damaged by the bombs (from the terrorists in the East too, JO) and they had to flee to the coast. I myself grew up in the East in Alramoseh, a place called Alamarieh near Alinsari."
"It was very very hard during the occupation. I feel like I died during those years and now I have come alive again. It was difficult to get enough food, actually, we were starving and my mother in law who felt ill could not get any medical aid. It was very hard."
I was the only person from Scandinavia and entered Eastern Aleppo for the first time on December 11, 2016, with a handful of other foreigners. First in the Hanano district, later in other parts, the Old City and the industrial zone.
Whatever the large Western media have told you about genocide, mass murder, slaughter etc of citizens in Eastern Aleppo, I can only report two things: None of these media were present, they reported from Beirut, Libanon, Istanbul or Berlin - and I did not see any of it. I did not see any dead bodies and met no one with fear in their eyes. Where I was.
The stories I heard were basically the same with variations on three themes:
• The people living in Eastern Aleppo which, in 2012, were suddenly occupied by a diversity of groups, bands and commandos, with or without uniforms but all with guns in their hands, saw this as an occupation. They did not associate it with anything positive but with suffering, death and destruction - years of fear and lack of freedom.
• They were extremely happy that, on December 12, 2016, it was finally over and Eastern Aleppo 100% liberated by the Syrian Arab Army, various associated military groups and by Russian aerial bombardments. The offensive as some call it - but it lead to the liberation of the East - had begun on November 15.
• They expressed gratitude to the Syrian government, the military, the student volunteers, the Red Crescent and to the Russians - the latter both for the bombing so the terrorists would give up and for the field hospitals the Russians had set up which I saw myself in the Jenin Reception Centre where so many East Aleppians arrived to get some little humanitarian help.
I arrived to Western Aleppo on December 10 and was in and out of Eastern Aleppo each of the days December 11, 12, 13 and in Jenin on the 14th. At no point did I see Western humanitarian aid workers on the ground.
Neither did I observe the highly-lauded, allegedly humanitarian rescue teams of the Syrian Civil Defence - or White Helmets. I met a few locals who had heard about them, but none who had seen them or been assisted by them during these years of occupation. (The Syrian Civil Defence was a name stolen because Syria has had an organisation of its own with that name since 1953).
Cautionary notes
Note 1: Aleppo is a big city and obviously I have not seen what happened in all its parts, lanes and houses. It is fully possible that some of its citizens who have been fighting with the rebels/opposition/terrorists (ROT) against their own governments and fellow citizens the last few years were hard hit and some killed. The final hours of this type of fighting seldom resembles a cosy tea party.
Note 2: I have no illusions that war is a solution or brings peace in its wake. But I have felt - strongly - that I have witnessed something of fundamental importance that large, opinion-shaping mainstream media in the West have systematically chosen to not report. For weeks, many of them reported that more and more of Eastern Aleppo were "falling" - i.e. getting back under government control. In spite of that they chose to not be present at the liberation - such as BBC - although they must have had a visa since they had been there earlier.
I am reporting truthfully what I have seen - and others who were there at the same time have published quite similar reports. My photos are genuine from that place during those days. They are not the result - as so many others - of manipulation, stealing from other wars or towns, photoshopping or marketing-created fake videos and photos.
That other things may have happened elsewhere could be true too. In the last pocket of rebel resistance, the fighting may have been merciless.
But reports containing news that the Syrian government, the Army and the Russians only mass killed innocent civilians (i.e. Syrian citizens without a gun in their hand) - that the president ("the dictator") systematically kills his own, as is repeatedly stated with little or no source control is, given what I have witnessed, not the whole truth or, worse, deliberately untruthful and demonising.
What you have heard about the liberation of Aleppo is either mostly falsifications or a small part of a much larger truth. I do not know but I know what I experienced with this documentation. I cannot report places I have not been to, people I have not met and stories I have not heard.
So ask the media who profess to know and convey the truth to you where they were and how they know what the truth is - the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
TFF's conflict and peace mission - share and support
The visit to Aleppo at this historic moment was part of a ten-day conflict and peace fact-finding mission by the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, TFF, in Lund, Sweden of which I am the director. I can be contacted at janoberg@mac.com.
Our gratitude to those who support the foundation in its work for the UN norm of making peace with peaceful means and made this mission, the first since the violence broke out in Syria in 2011, possible. To the extent that we can raise the funds, it will be the first of more missions.
Thanks for helping us continue this mission here.
You can subscribe to the stories that will appear here. And you can help us bring out the message by copying the url above and paste it into your social media pages or elsewhere. Thanks!
These photos and copyright
Finally, many of the images here are snapshot-like. They are shot either with my Nikon D7000 or my iPhone 6S. They are taken under very difficult circumstances, no time permitting the search for the perfect angle or focus; some are "drive-by" photos shot out of the car window. But they have all been processed and improved upon my return from Syria.
All rights reserved to these images. Under no circumstances must any of them be reprinted or reposted online without my written consent.
* Ten days is the maximum duration of a visa when you visit for the first time. It isn't a helpful policy when you are part of a worldwide, fierce war about perceptions and opinions.
Click on each image to enlarge it. Also, hover over an image to see whether there is a caption that explains the situation.