As the Syrian army advances into rebel-held Eastern Aleppo, it is hard to know what to believe. It seems that some accounts for both sides use the truth liberally, and share selectively what serves their interests.
Bana Alabed, the 7-year-old girl who has gained global media attention for her tweets about life in the embattled district, has been sharing her terrifying ordeal overnight.
In a series of haunting tweets, Bana and her mother Fatemah, who runs her account, described the approach of the army and heavy bombardment. A later image shows Bana covered in dust, with a caption suggesting that their house had been hit. This has been widely used as a story in Western media this morning.
Tonight we have no house, it's bombed & I got in rubble. I saw deaths and I almost died. - Bana #Aleppo pic.twitter.com/arGYZaZqjg
— Bana Alabed (@AlabedBana) November 27, 2016
With 134,000 followers and the blue tick of Twitter verification, it would seem that Bana’s heartbreaking story is undeniably true. However, after the latest tweets, a number of international journalists and observers, as well as Assad supporters, have been sceptical:
If you have no internet then what kind of black magic are you using to tweet, Bana?! For fuck's sakehttps://t.co/D2Hq6L839U
— Haidar Sumeri (@IraqiSecurity) November 27, 2016
Yeah...first thing most people think of when their house is blown up: "I gotta fire up Twitter!" #fraud #propaganda https://t.co/cFgqK4r7lI
— Daniel McAdams (@DanielLMcAdams) November 28, 2016
Spoof accounts have even been created for Bana’s mother and father, in order to present them as islamists and liars:
@Syricide @halabtweets I am I am the leader of the Khanazer Brigade - Ahmed
— Abu Ahmed Alabed (@Ahmed_Alabeed) November 27, 2016
This is my brother Abdel Alabed. He hasn't had any food in months since regime siege us. Please help us or our dream of a caliphate will die pic.twitter.com/Oh0jgfqHcl
— Abu Ahmed Alabed (@Ahmed_Alabeed) November 26, 2016
Contradicting Bana's account of contant regime assults, others have questioned the consensus in Aleppo:
Sakhour District has been liberated. We are witnessing the greatest lie of the decade too. There are no 250k people in east Aleppo.
— Ayotollah Leith (@leithfadel) November 28, 2016
#SAA advances in #Aleppo are remarkable. It seems like militant capabilities (numbers and defensive abilities) were greatly overestimated.
— Peto Lucem (@PetoLucem) November 27, 2016
Added to that, the Syrian Civil Defense, known as the White Helmets, were forced to apologize over the weekend after they shared a video of aid workers taking part in a “mannequin challenge”. The posed scene, showing rescuers apparently removing someone from the rubble, caused some to ask how easy it is for the rebels to produce fake images of destruction and injury. The Civil Defense later apologized, saying “'This was an error of judgment, and we apologize on behalf of the volunteers involved."
Such accusations are not new. President Assad has previously accused the opposition of producing false pictures, including the iconic video of a dust-covered and apparently shellshocked boy, Omran, sitting in the back of an ambulance in August.
It is hard to know whether such scepticism of the facts is warranted. Official international organizations including the UN and the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights report large ongoing civilian casualties in Eastern Aleppo, including more than 219 on Sunday. International media have provided aerial shots of the complete destruction of the rebel-controlled areas of the city. Additionally, it has been widely reported that the UN estimates 250,000 people to be trapped in the area, although it is unclear where these figures have come from precisely.
What is clear, however, is that the government is making rapid advances in Eastern Aleppo, and many say the city will unlikely remain a rebel stronghold for much longer.
RA
