Aleppo: The Fall

Last year, one of the worst human tragedies took place in Aleppo. After a few months of siege and indiscriminate shelling, tens of thousands of people were evicted from the city.

Beyond the horrific scenes of bombardment and forced mass eviction, little reflection has followed on how and why these violations happened and what the implications are for the present and future Syria.

Why did Aleppo fall? Who is responsible and how to be held accountable? What was the role of the local armed factions in Aleppo? Who was negotiating on behalf of the civilians? Who was forced to leave eastern Aleppo and who was allowed to return after the fall? What is happening in Aleppo today? What are the protection needs of civilians living in Aleppo under Assad?

Lina Shamy will give a personal testimony of living under Aleppo’s siege before she was forced to leave with the last buses in December 2016. Dr. Mohamad Katoub will address the inhumane situation under the siege and put it into context with the use of siege as a war tactic against civilians in many other locations around Syria. Finally, Karam Nachar will reflect on the meaning and implications of Aleppo’s catastrophe ending with an outlook on the near future of an increasingly fragmented country.

Karam Nachar

Karam Nachar is the Executive Director of AlJumhuriya.net, an online journal that covers Syrian politics and culture, and a Lecturer at Isik University, Istanbul. Nachar completed his PhD in Modern History at Princeton University in 2014, with focus on Cultural and Intellectual History of Modern Syria and Lebanon. Nachar holds a Masters in Modern Middle Eastern Studies from Oxford University.

Mohamad Katoub

Mohamad Katoub is a dentist and medical worker from Douma, in Eastern Ghouta. He’s an advocacy manager for the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS), a humanitarian organization harnessing the talents of Syrian-American health care professionals to provide medical relief.

Kristin Bergtora Sandvik

Kristin Bergtora Sandvik (moderator) is a Research Professor in Humanitarian Studies at Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) and a professor of sociology of law at the University of Oslo. Sandvik obtained her doctorate from Harvard Law School in 2008, and she is the Co-Founder and former Director of the Norwegian Center for Humanitarian Studies.