News and vignettes
It was getting dark as we arrive in Jadeideh, an old Christian neighbourhood in Aleppo's UNESCO-listed Old City. The chants of Allahu akbar ("God is greatest") were incessant with the shooting. The Free Syrian Army had commandeered an old, recently renovated Damascene house to serve as ...
It's the planes that scare me. You can hear them, you some times spot them, and you have no idea where their terror will fall. That waiting game, that I first experienced in the desert of Libya almost a year and a half ago.
On August 10, I arrived in Aleppo to the same Free Syrian Army base that I had been at the day before. In the courtyard, a huge hole had appeared over night. Four bombs had ...
We jump out of the car and run across a "sniper alley", darting through a hole in the opposite wall. What this wall once protected is now nothing but rubble, across which we scramble. Our heads are low as we run, hunched up and through another wall, across a road strewn with detritus, through another hole and bounding over mounds of rubble. We climb a makeshift ...
I've been here before. Almost three years ago, I was crammed in the back of a shared taxi, making the journey between Kilis, the Turkish border town, and Aleppo. "Güle gale Turkish, goodbye English" said one of the three Turks with whom I shared the taxi. The taxi driver used each of our passports to buy ...
After two weeks of relative calm in the M23-FARDC (Congolese army) conflict, fighting raged again yesterday around Rumangabo and Kibumba, the stage for the United Nation’s defences for Goma.
Heavy artillery and gunfire has caused thousands to flee their homes. Reports from Katale, which is currently inaccessible from Goma, talk of many huddled on the airstrip outside the UN base there. In Kibati, on the outskirts of the provincial capital, an aid agency say nearly 8000 have arrived.
Last night, they huddled outside under a heavy storm, and their numbers had swelled this afternoon, with forty people filling one, small classroom. The desks are stacked up outside as some of the rooms are used to register the displaced.
Land-cruisers emblazoned with aid agency logos mill about, but people here say that they have little to eat, and many will spend a cold night outdoors.
Fighting continued to rage today around Rumangabo, where the headquarters of the Virunga National Park is situated. Rebels had withdrawn from Rutshuru after they took it two weeks ago, but today they were fighting again for the town. As I post this, Jason Stearns says he has confirmed reports that neighbouring Kiwanja has fallen to M23 rebels. Incidentally, the UN has a large base there, manned by Indian peacekeepers.
