Aleppo, Syria, truly is a horrible place to be. Once a vibrant, cosmopolitan city, it has become an apocalyptic landscape scarred by destruction. Snipers shoot people waiting in bread lines, and airstrikes crush families in their sleep.
There are still good people in Aleppo — innocent, noncombatant civilians. Some are too poor or sick to flee; some refuse on principle to leave their homes.
They face a difficult choice: Risk death, disease, starvation and perennial homelessness as refugees in a camp with open sewers, living in tents and enduring dehydration in the summer and freezing in the winter. Or risk bullets, shrapnel and incineration at home. Many prefer to chance dying at home.