Zeina Shahla

Aleppo Residents Pick Through the Wreckage of Their Earthquake-Shattered Lives

It would not be easy to draw a simple line differentiating between the physical, material and psychological destruction wrought by the earthquake and the war that has lasted for 12 years, after a few hours touring the city’s neighborhoods, especially its eastern districts. The two events intertwine in an intractable way. “Not one disaster but two,” was a common refrain I heard from residents of Aleppo when describing what had happened to their city.