And it’s the same elsewhere in Syria. Because of the compound’s isolated location, it is strictly speaking the only lawful military target—the only one that could be hit without collateral damage disproportionate to the military advantage gained. Yet it’s still there.

And it’s the same in other parts of Syria. Except for Al Qaeda, everything is under attack. "By now it’s no longer a question of humanitarian aid," says Moayed Zarnaji, a Red Cross volunteer. "A kilo of rice won’t make any difference. You’ll die anyway." Often, you’ll die anyway even if you survive the bombing: no one will come to pull you out of the rubble. They have a Civil Defense unit now, guys with flashlights, gloves, plastic helmets, a tractor, sort of like a fire department.

There are about thirty of them, but the number varies from day to day, from hour to hour. Because the corpses, in Aleppo, are always in pairs: the second one being the person who instinctively runs to help and is hit by the second barrel. And even if they pull you out of the rubble, no one here has anything to treat you with anymore. Only two hospitals are left. Actually, only one: the other was hit as I was writing. "Even if they treat you, you go back under the helicopters," a little girl tells me. Her left arm is all splinters and scars. Before she can show me her right arm, a mortar explodes, down the street, and she runs away.

Because you wait and you die in Aleppo. That’s all.

And nothing is more atrocious than the first bombing. When someone, under there, is still alive, and you hear the voices, the screams, amid the dust, while you still can’t distinguish anything, saa’idni! saaa’idni!, they implore you, help me!, help me! Like this woman, now. We are in Soukkari, hearing the shrieks of her two grandchildren, seventeen and eighteen years old, relatives restraining her as she struggles to break free, and falls, gets up, screams, saa’idni! saaa’idni!, and it’s the cruelest moment, brothers, fathers, friends, everyone restraining them as they struggle to break free, desperate, clawing at the rubble, like that, with their bare hands, and right away, another chopper promptly arrives, hovers sadistically as everyone runs, yet again, and now, no one knows where to run anymore, everyone struggling, falling, scrambling back up, amid the screams, the clatter of the blades, the dust, the blood—the explosion.

Because you die, in Aleppo. That’s all.

The city is divided in two: half under rebel control, half under the control of the regime. And in the eastern sector, the rebel half, a new regime, that of Al Qaeda, replaced the old one in September.

But today it no longer even makes sense to talk about a regime here; it’s the rebels or Assad. Because Aleppo is, simply, a no-man’s-land. Prey to criminal gangs.

Checkpoints have essentially disappeared: the rebels are all at the front, embroiled in fighting. After spending more time looting and extorting than governing the city, and above all, after having destroyed each other in internal clashes, thereby paving the way for Assad’s counter-offensive, they are now engaged in cutting off supply routes with Damascus, as well as carrying out a diversionary operation in the southwest, in the province of Latakia.

Our analysts follow military developments step by step, map in hand: who’s advancing, who’s falling back, hour after hour. But no matter who advances, no matter who falls back, in reality no one is governing anything here—it’s life in the wild. No one controls anyone anymore. There’s nothing left to capture but rubble.

The only visible sign of authority is at the entrance to Karaj al-Hajez, more commonly known as "the Death Crossing" because it is the crossing point between the two halves of Aleppo and is under constant fire from Assad’s snipers. For those who live in the eastern half, it’s essential, since for many, a great many, the only source of income is their state employee wages, which must be earned in the western side. That or selling fruit, vegetables, meat, because prices are higher in the west and you can sell a pound there to buy two here. But most importantly, in the west you are not under bombardment. And you have humanitarian aid. Those who have been displaced are all over there. And so the only visible sign of authority is here, at the Karaj al-Hajez crossing. Earlier the Islamists of Al Qaeda had banned the transport of food. Now they’ve built a wall.

Syrians no longer argue over politics. The war, now fought mainly by foreigners—jihadists on the one hand, Hezbollah, Iranians, and assorted mercenaries on the other—no longer seems to interest them. They no longer talk about "liberated areas." Now it’s simply East Aleppo and West Aleppo.

"The Free Army advances and advances, it seems to be about to win—then, all of a sudden, no more weapons arrive. And the regime goes on the counter-offensive. The regime advances, advances, seems about to win—and suddenly the Free Army gets new weapons. And it’s been that way for months," Alaa Alloush recaps the situation. He’s one of the last activists still here. Still alive. "You’re all there debating the advisability of outside intervention. But outside intervention here is already underway. What we need instead is an internal intervention, so that Syria may be returned to us Syrians."

Because the only priority here is survival. Helicopters, airplanes, airplanes, helicopters: there’s no respite.

And in the evening all you can do is huddle in a corner, terrified. On local television, Aleppo Today, the list of dead streams by constantly, like final credits, at the bottom of the screen, while outside the window, in the dark, every ten, twenty, thirty minutes, the specter of Aleppo reappears in the flash of an explosion.

I keep looking nervously at my watch. Waiting for dawn. But I’m the only one: it’s a habit from another life. 

Because the only difference between night and day here is that at night you can’t even run away. At night the war in Aleppo becomes slaughter. You don’t fight: you die and that’s it. Randomly.

Because they bomb here, they bomb and bomb and bomb. That’s all.

Republished with permission of Seven Stories Press.

Francesca Borri: "Syrian Dust – Reporting from the Heart of the Battle for Aleppo", Seven Stories Press 2016, 224 pages