The autumn sun was shining over the historic Umayyad mosque in October 2010. Visitors who had been present the night before for their evening prayer would not be able to recognize the mosque today. After six years of constant war, the Umayyad mosque and most of Aleppo, Syria has been reduced to heaps of ash and rubble. The beloved city of Aleppo has fallen.

The year 2011 marked the birth of a revolution. The phenomenon is known as the Arab Spring, a series of series of anti-government protests and rebellions that spread across the Middle East. Syrian citizens soon decided to join in for the fight for their own freedoms. The reigning Assad family, however, refused to step down and instead deployed troops to silence protesters, thus causing the formation of the rebel groups.

Amid the chaos, one terrorist group, ISIL, stepped onto the battlefield. Being the largest city in Syria (before the civil war), Aleppo would help secure ISIL’s power in the Middle East. It wasn’t, however, the only force fighting for the city. The Assad family was also resisting the terrorist group in an attempt to control Syria.

In the midst of this prolonged civil war, 1.9 million civilians have been wounded, 470,000 have died, and more than 1 million people have been internally displaced.

Regarding the cultural gap between America and the East, Suendus Qureshi, a Muslim student, said, “It’s not an everyday thing for us to see war break out.”

Tensions are also rising due to President Trump’s executive order, which suspends all visas from seven countries with a majority Muslim population, including Syria.

“[The Syrian refugees are] victims themselves of what’s going on in Aleppo.” said Qureshi.

What should be done?

According to Shujan Sharafeldeen, the U.S. “shouldn’t open its borders until proper vetting is done.”

There is a generation of children who have grown up only knowing war. Chaos reigns where childhood once lived. Rather than going to school and spending time with their loved ones, they are brutally torn from their homes. Now, they are subjected to victimization by their own government.

This government, which has sworn to protect the liberties of its people, has shut its ears to the cry of the orphaned and widowed. Rather than fighting for the people, Bashar al-Assad has fought against his enemies.

The end of the Aleppo war was no “victory”. To call it as such is to ignore the suffering of Syrians who are returning to heaps for homes and crumbling streets for shelter*. True victory will come when the world joins refugees to rebuild the pieces of this ravaged region. We cannot mistake awareness for aid, or pity for compassion.  

The people of Syria need our help. How can we turn our backs on them now?

*For more information, check out this video provided by AP: https://youtu.be/UQU-8AupnPg