At first glance, Aleppo, from high above, looks the same as it has for hundreds of years, a sprawl of concrete and stone across the brown plains of northern Syria. Looking more closely, though, it is clear four years of war have taken a withering toll on one of the world’s oldest cities, particularly the rebel-held east, the extensive damage to which is obvious even from space.  Satellite images released this week by the United Nations reveal an urban landscape that barely resembles the city that had stood defiant throughout several millennia of war and insurrection. The latest conflict has changed that, particularly in the past year, during which Russian and Syrian jets have relentlessly bombed the eastern half, destroying homes, schools, shops and hospitals.  Aleppo is now a tale of two cities. Its ancient citadel remains largely intact at the centre of a panoramic image taken in September. In the regime-held west, homes and buildings are still standing, with streets apparently clear. The relative calm of life in the west had been showcased by Syria’s tourism ministry, which released drone footage this week showing ordered buildings along tree-lined boulevards, complete with well-watered civic gardens and minarets.  In the east, though, the damage is extensive, and in some parts overwhelming. The UN’s satellite shots reveal that whole neighbourhoods on the eastern and northern outskirts are now grey smudges. Drone footage taken over eastern Aleppo last month showed the situation nearer to street level to be even worse. A bird’s eye view captured devastated neighbourhoods and few signs of life on rubble-strewn roads. The small number of cars on the move darted between intersections.  The Guardian has visited east Aleppo more than 10 times since mid-2012, when it was overrun by a locally raised opposition to the Syrian leader’s rule. Since then, the rebel-held districts have endured several incarnations: global jihadists arrived later that year, subverting the local population and their cause until they were chased out by an even more sinister threat, Islamic State, in April the following year.  In the summer of 2012, the scars of battle were fresh, but scarce. Shops remained open in much of the east, and neighbourhoods functioned as they always had, vendors touting wares amid motorbike fumes and cars inching through bustling streets criss-crossed with electricity wires.  As war set in, people moved out. Aleppo slowly crumbled over the next two years. A once-symmetrical skyline became increasingly jagged. Rubble stood where the al-Shifa hospital used to be. Streets were no longer busy, making it easy for motorbikes to manoeuvre around bomb craters. Those who remained in east Aleppo pointed out where families had been buried under mountains of concrete. Such shrines to the dead multiplied with every trip.  Winter casts a pall over Aleppo. Grey skies blend with diesel smoke and fog that hangs low to the ground. Throughout all the city’s seasons, stalls selling fresh produce – tomatoes, bananas, apples and oranges – gave the city life, bright splashes on dull streets, which were steadily being bled of people and hope.  As east Aleppo’s residents joined hundreds of thousands of refugees from elsewhere in Syria, the city increasingly felt abandoned. The black flags of Isis were fixed to government buildings and painted over walls from April 2013 until January the following year. These were Aleppo’s darkest days of modern times – until the blitz of the past year.  In early 2014, Isis was ousted by a rebel fightback, which again changed the character of the east. Since then, Islamists have competed with more mainstream groups for influence over territory. Control of access points to the north and south, meanwhile, has been contested between jihadists and mainstream units, with the former mostly dominant.  They have not, however, been able to break a siege enforced by Shia militias from Iraq, Lebanon and Iran, which are allied to Assad and providing bombing targets for Russian jets. Airstrikes have concertinaed hundreds of buildings and carved large slices out of hundreds more.  Every neighbourhood in east Aleppo has been scathed by the war, particularly by the large-scale, often indiscriminate bombing carried out by Russian jets and Syrian helicopters since the Russian intervention to support Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad started just over a year ago.  Since the Russian bombing began, an already inadequate level of healthcare provision has become far more desperate. Only five hospitals and medical centres are now operating in east Aleppo, only one of which is a trauma centre. The last maternity clinic was destroyed in late September; the biggest remaining trauma centre was put out of business by Russian jets on Monday.  School resumed in Aleppo this week. By some estimates, as many as 100,000 children still live in the east of the city, although the scale of destruction and the chaos of war makes a precise number difficult to establish. Those who made it to school arrived to classrooms that had been moved underground.  Students made their way on Wednesday through unusually quiet streets that doctors say had claimed more than 300 children in the past 10 days. Many had been killed in their homes with their families. There were no air strikes over Aleppo on Wednesday for the first time since a week long US-Russian ceasefire broke down in late September.  The satellite images reveal that there is not much left to bomb. The intensive blitz has taken an enormous toll on civilian infrastructure, but perhaps an even bigger toll on the civilian population, which has been besieged since June by forces allied to the Assad regime. The forces have gradually inched closer to the city limits, in between lulls in the bombing. Those who remain in east Aleppo have no access to food or aid.  “This damage to our emotional health has eaten away at our souls,” said a resident of the Sha’ar district, Saad Dughmush. “It will change the life of this city for ever. It has pitched the people against themselves. The sounds of the bombings are like demons in our heads.”  Water-pumping stations have also been targeted by airstrikes and sabotage, with supplies cut to around 1.5 million people on both sides of the city, according to Oxfam.  “Our suffering is not about to end,” said Dughmush. “What remains of our city is being ground into the soil.”  • Graphics by Pablo Gutiérrez and Paul Torpey
While life remains relatively calm in the western half of the Syrian city, the rebel-controlled east has been almost obliterated, new UN pictures show