Aleppo situation continues to look dire

Aleppo, Syria is dying.

Both the city and its people are perishing due to ISIS and the ongoing war that restricts civilians’ ability to recruit international attention.

The United States is working with a coalition against ISIS, but recent reports depict a literal hell on Earth for the residents of Aleppo. People are warned not to go out to collect their deceased loved ones for fear of being shot on sight.

There are also reports of executions on top of the bombings that have already taken the lives of countless civilians.

At what cost does the decimation of ISIS, which should be the goal for any nation freeing Aleppo from extremists’ grasp, come at? Like war zones in the past, the people of Aleppo are coping with the results of opposing forces that have chosen their city as ground zero.

Americans are chronically stuck in their bubble of luxurious ignorance, choosing to pay attention to petty first-world problems instead of focusing their attention on the stories of those in Aleppo who are dying in the war zone that has encompassed their lives for the past five years.

While we worry about every tweet President-elect Donald Trump makes, mothers and fathers in Aleppo worry if they could give their children a proper burial since they may get shot trying to recover the bodies.

Evacuation plans have allowed some civilians to leave the city, but these are recent. This could have happened months ago, but the stakes for war were too high to consider human casualties at the time. This comes on the heels of reports that 82 civilians, including women and children, were gunned down on the streets or in their homes.

“While some were reportedly able to flee yesterday, some were reportedly caught and killed on the spot and others arrested,” said Rupert Colville, spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights. “In these hours, it looks like a complete meltdown of humanity in Aleppo.”

The election is over. Tomorrow, Trump will be our president. The media and its consumers need to get over this; More crucial issues exist around the world.

A day focusing on Trump instead of real issues is another day of allowing atrocities like the war in Syria continue to happen. They can’t be stopped if the world doesn’t care enough about them.

The first step is to notice. The next is to remember.

The last step is to do something.

Opinion columnist Frank Campos is a media production senior and can be reached at [email protected]. You can sign a petition for UH to offer scholarships to 10 Syrian refugees here. 

Tags: Aleppo, Syria