From bombed-out Aleppo, a simple message was sent to the people of London on Wednesday – ’Aleppo is Burning’ – as Syrian activists ask Londoners to recognise their ’Blitz Spirit’.
Syrian activists in the UK dropped a 12 metre “Aleppo is Burning” banner from London’s famed Royal Festival Hall on Wednesday.
Protesters said the action was part of a wider campaign to highlight the devastating bombing Aleppo has endured during five years of war, which intensified from last month.
The campaigners said they took the action on behalf of Syrian opposition councils in Aleppo who have called on London’s new mayor Sadiq Khan to show solidarity by twinning the UK capital with the Syrian city.
“We are asking London to stand in solidarity with Aleppo and to be a champion the message that civilians need to be protected, hospitals shouldn’t be bombarded, and children should not have to live in fear anymore,” said a spokesperson from Syria Solidarity UK.
“We are counting on the people, the activists, and the politicians to do everything they can to achieve that goal. The protection of civilians in Syria has to be the priority of any UK policy about Syria. We are hoping to meet Mr. Sadiq Khan soon to deliver the letter from Aleppo council by hand and to ask him to twin London with Aleppo.”
Syrian activists in bombed out Aleppo are now asking Londoners to remember this period and help the suffering of Syrians falling victim to regime and Russian bombing during the present day.
“Seventy five years ago, London was burning in the Blitz. Today, Aleppo is burning; burning because of deliberate attacks by Syria’s own dictator [Bashar] al-Assad and his Russian ally [Vladimir] Putin. Many more people have been killed by Assad than were killed in the Blitz,” the group said in a statement.
More than half the country’s population has been made homeless and large parts of Syria’s largest cities abandoned after being levelled by barrel bombs.
