Aleppo, Syria – When Abdallah Abu Jarrah was 13, he dreamed of becoming an engineer or a lawyer.
But his home city of Aleppo was besieged by Syrian regime forces, aided by Iran, Russia and Hezbollah.
“The situation was terrible with bombings, beatings and killing,” the now 21-year-old told Al Jazeera. “I remember the regime’s massacres, the killing, and the hitting of bakeries and hospitals.”
Eight years later, a series of images went viral on social media. Youth, displaced by the regime in 2016, had returned as fighters to liberate the city of Aleppo. The side-by-side photos showed children boarding buses in one photo. In the next photo, they are young men smiling broadly, wearing military fatigues and carrying rifles.
On December 22, 2016, a four-year battle that pitted regime forces and their allies against the opposition ended with the evacuation of thousands of opposition forces from East Aleppo on buses.
War crimes were rife.