The Children of Aleppo, Syria, Trapped in a Killing Zone

The Children of Aleppo, Syria, Trapped in a Killing Zone

They cannot play, sleep or attend school. Increasingly, they cannot eat. Injury or illness could be fatal. Many just huddle with their parents in windowless underground shelters — which offer no protection from the powerful bombs that have turned east Aleppo into a kill zone.

Among the roughly 250,000 people trapped in the insurgent redoubt of the divided northern Syrian city are 100,000 children, the most vulnerable victims of intensified bombings by Syrian forces and their Russian allies.

Though the world is jolted periodically by the suffering of children in the Syria conflict — the photographs of Alan Kurdi’s drowned body and Omran Daqneesh’s bloodied face are prime examples — dead and traumatized children are increasingly common.

The routine in east Aleppo, where shellshocked children are exhumed from rubble and left writhing in bloody clothes on dirty hospital gurneys, is a confluence of Syria’s young population, failed diplomacy and the reality of a war that appears to be worsening after more than five years.

‘The Worst We Have Seen’

“They’re trapped, and they have no way of escaping,” said Alun McDonald, a spokesman for the Middle East operations of Save the Children, the international charity. “That’s one reason we’re seeing such big numbers of child casualties.”

The people living in besieged rebel-held areas of Aleppo have shown a high level of resilience, moving schools and hospitals underground for protection. So too, life has continued on the government-held western side of the city, where, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, 49 children were killed by rebel mortar fire in July alone.

But lately on the eastern side, Mr. McDonald said, “the bombing has become so intense, with such high-powered bombs, that even underground shelters aren’t safe anymore.”

Save the Children has said that at several hospitals and ambulance centers it supports in eastern Aleppo, half of the casualties have been children since the bombings escalated after the collapse of a short-lived cease-fire last week.

The battle for control of Aleppo appeared to intensify on Tuesday. Pro-government forces stepped up a new ground offensive, attacking from four directions and advancing in a central area near the city’s ancient citadel, further squeezing the insurgent-held areas.

It signifies a new determination on the part of the government and its allies to retake all of the city, but the battle could be long and grinding and take months or even years, international officials warned. Even with militia allies from Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, and the Lebanese group Hezbollah, the government has not in the past quickly taken territory and managed to hold it.

Hanaa Singer, the Unicef representative in Syria, said precise numbers of child casualties in east Aleppo had yet to be determined. Nonetheless, she said by telephone from Damascus, “it’s definitely the worst we have seen for children.”

Just a few weeks ago, Ms. Singer said, Unicef planned to publicize how east Aleppo children were enrolled to go back to school, with photos of students walking to class past piles of rubble. That plan was scrapped.

“Children are not going to school now,” she said.