The residents of the Aleppo province of Syria, whose northern towns and villages are beset on all sides by Daesh, the People's Protection Units (YPG), pro-regime troops and Russian forces, have expressed their determination to stay in their homes.
Despite attacks on Aleppo intensifying both from the land and air and an estimated 200,000 having reportedly fled fighting in northern Aleppo, a large number of residents say that they want to die on their own land.
"We are not afraid of the bombs but of emigration. We will never leave the city until the enemies reach here (city center). We were born on this land; we will die here," the people of Aleppo said.
"We are still thankful that we are here. (Showing the remaining part of the city seized by the regime forces) Can they be thankful? (No). I don't want to go and live in dirt-mud in refugee camps. We are honorable people. Yes, hundreds of missiles a day here fall but this does not scare me at all. The only thing that scares me is the possibility of leaving my city. That scares me more than the Russian attacks," said a shoe seller.
"Thank god! We have seen worse days under the Russian and regime attacks. We are used to it and we are not scared," said a woman resident of the Kurdish neighborhood of Aleppo.
" I have not been able to go to school for more than 2 years. One morning, we realized that our school was destroyed during a shelling. I can barely read and write because I forgot how. That's why my mother always stimulates me reading books," Shedi, a child said.
"Many of my relatives have left Syria and reached Gaziantep and Istanbul (provinces of Turkey). They also asked me to join them. But I don't want to go. I want to stay in my own country," said a 64-year-old woman living in the Turkmen neighborhood.
Aleppo, among the most ancient cities, had been a center of industry, trade and tourism before the war. For five years it has endured thunderous bombardment by the regime strike aircrafts, armed with munitions like phosphorus bombs, vacuum bombs and barrel bombs.
Recently, predominantly Turkmen quarters in central Aleppo have become vulnerable targets for the heaviest-ever air strikes over the last five years.
Attacks using barrel bombs dropped from the pro-regime planes have ruined utterly the quarters of Haydariyah, Bostan Pasha, Shaikh Hidir, Holluk.
The seizure of Kalamun town by Assad forces laid the foundations of the intensified attacks toward Aleppo by paving the way for the foreign fighters to enter Syria from Lebanon, led by Iran.
