In March of 2011, the citizens of East Aleppo began protests against the government of Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad. Since then, things have gotten extremely violent and it seems to me like not many people are helping them.

After the protests began, al-Assad would not meet the demands of the protesters. He also gave orders to break up the protests and his security forces became violent. They brought out weapons and forced people from their homes and in July of 2012, the rebel fighters took over the east. In the same time frame, the first shots have been fired at the protesters. At that point it was rebel fighters against the government’s fighters and this began to destroy historic sites and the market.

Right there, I feel like somebody should have stepped in to either help or stop it all. The idea of the government fighting its own people is terrible and there should be another way to discuss what the citizens want to happen.

In 2013, when the rebels cut off a part of the highway so the government forces couldn’t get to them, I feel like that’s when someone should have intervened. Anyway, that resulted in the government using a longer route to get to them. Eventually, that plan backfired against the rebels because the government called their allies to come help.

The attacks have started to become more serious as 80 students are killed at Aleppo University by what witnesses say was a bomb dropped by a jet from the Assad regime. Think about that, that’s 80 people you know or have seen on your college campus, just gone because of the government fighting rebels. This all stemmed from protests because the people wanted change and al-Assad was not willing to offer that. The biggest problem is that isn’t even the worst of it.

Earlier this year, a drone camera caught the footage of what Aleppo looked like. That was before, now it looks even worse. In 2016, people have been posting videos of them saying their goodbyes because they just felt like it was the end for them. These people felt like there was no hope, even though there was a ceasefire established. Unfortunately for the innocent citizens in between the fighting of the rebels, government, and now ISIL, the ceasefire barely lasted a day. The buses were set on fire, in their videos you could still hear gunshots being fired.

These citizens feel like they have to choice but to die because they are caught in the middle. They have no resources being brought in for them. People have even been committing suicide because of what al-Assad’s regime has been doing to them. Here is a video from Vox explaining all of this with images.

In that video, it also explains why it would be very risky for the U.S. to officially get involved. Long story short, it could end up in a nuclear war between us and Russia and we would have to have soldiers in east Aleppo for a very long time.

I don’t know exactly what we can do but something has to be done. It has to stop. Thousands upon thousands have been killed in this city because there are three forces fighting around them and they can’t go anywhere. There needs to be a way to save the rest of these people and help those who have already escaped but have nothing.