Memories from Aleppo, 2018. Interview with Pierre Le Corf

https://youtu.be/K5ybiJ_a0dk
 

 

Pierre Le Corf

Someone whom I think of as a hero, he is one of my heroes, Pierre Le Corf, definitely a hero of mine.

I am pleased to honored to be with him today. We met him by chance in Aleppo.

Thank you very much for speaking with us Pierre, and I appreciate your work so much.  You’re a saint in many ways.

My pleasure

Thank you

Could you tell us what how life has changed in Aleppo since the liberation?

It has been very different steps because during the war we were besieged by the terrorists. The media used to talk about the army besieging the terrorists, but actually we were besieged first, the army moved around the terrorists and besieged the terrorist back.  So, for like a brief period of time really we thought that Aleppo will never be liberated we really thought that we really thought that Aleppo would fall because they were attacking by thousands of thousands and it was really really hard because the neighborhood I was living was like really complying and we can hear  like the terrorists screaming Allahu Akbar and we can hear them singing so we like a few months we spend time like with our clothes at nights bags keep us really warm because we really thinking that we have to run overnight.  So step by step be any duration singing you know what’s more a forward so they they really didn’t kind of take the situation because they were attacking by thousands some time and the reason they didn’t get in that the planes we’re taking care of their second on the third waves of terrorists coming, but we were shelled much more in the time was passing over shelled in here right there – held in the oldest street

Everything after in my neighborhood it was like 25 mortars a day, rockets

They were targeting civilians the terrorists are targeting civilian people?

They were targeting anybody, didn’t target anything specifically because they use mortars … there’s no way to target any specific target they just choose the degree of launching and it goes and in function of like the revolutions in the media as here and everything they target over places are the same, you need, the purpose is to kill people and

Yes, I heard they killed maybe eleven thousand civilians

Yes, around twelve to thirteen thousand now civilians

And they crippled and wounded another, a large number as well

Yes around 40,000 people

Here it has been very very tough because I can tell you just come back from the school and we were talking with the children we were trying to make the difference between now and before and still today the big problem here is that most of them they were ready to die most of my children were ready to die

Really. How old are they?

I had them between 12 to 17 years old, so I have my own the 7th grade to the 11th grade and most of them they were ready to die and actually the situation now is getting much better.

Everything is really good because we are not bombed anymore here, a little bit sometime, but most of the neighborhood are still bombed around the city, but here it’s okay and here its even worse for the youth, why, because before they were ready to die

Yes

They were condemned to die

Yeah

Now they are condemned to live, which is much worse than before, because before they really had to to  

Condemned to live

Condemned to

Now now they are condemned to live, living is harder

So why, tell me why is living harder now.

Because before they could you need just how can I say you believed being under the circumstance of war and everything but how can I say, now they have the same situation as before, but without the possibility to escape

Through death

Through death it was really fine the only one thing was which was really scaring the youth here was to be crippled.

Yes.

This was like the fear of everybody to lose someone you love but now I can say the situation is much better. The economy is coming a little bit back, the sanctions and everything else, all in the country.  

Okay so the kids are afraid to live, is that what you’re saying?

Yeah, because now their, they have to be here without a job, no opportunity without the future.

No job no opportunity.

They don’t, they don’t see, in their mind with the vision they have, the war with their government with the their parent or grandparents  or whatever they don’t expect anything from the future this struggle the only way they see that they can have something ever today will be to travel somewhere else out the country right. Here in Syria they don’t see it because they just see that like two kilometres from here, we still besieged by terrorists in the path of the sea

So they don’t see a future

through the absolute them

Bad dreams trauma yeah

But you how can I say the ambitions they really see themselves within the same start to imagine that this is possible okay is down yes

A lot of psychological spiritual trauma

And the work we do with the chance

Is that the work you’re doing, you’re trying to help them with everything?

witness everything and you know for the work of the show, yes it’s about emotional guidance to keep the things important to erase what is useless to put the finger right here to deal with the things you try to erase which are deeply a rotting inside you

Is it correct that in terrorist occupied areas the kids do not go to school?

No, of course they don’t go to school

No they don’t go to school actually most of the school I used by the military, the management of the school because you do is underground

Oh, you mean the terrorists they take over the schools

Yeah and dispose days sometime by some association or whatever it’s like a school mostly based on religion

We were talking about that the other day that one of the first things they attack was education because they the terrorists, because they don’t want an educated population, they just

They stole everything from the people more than their home, more than their hope they stole their life, they stole everything they can eventually they can imagine to have one there so the thing is that today and you can see in the east still today the people they’re coming back all the children are so happy to be in the school because did not have a chance to be with other youths like but even more something they stay inside because of could they were the planes were a terrorist so it was really dangerous and the situation was worse because they couldn’t have awake escape

yeah

They were stuck there because the terrorist is kept in there they were really used as you mentioned and most of the people are saying that human shield is like how can I say is a term which is used by the Syrian government which is not ,they were used by human shield as they were used in Duma houses they were using hota they’re still using lots of places

Yeah

And the fact is that the same now is going with it lived and it will happen the same and then it will be the next step for the army and the next step for the terrorists maybe even we will have a new chemical attack in Allepo

I hope not, because it will be so big I don’t, I don’t understand how people can still believe it

Yeah what do you think about that chemical attack Pierson Sharp was there he saw nothing I wrote an article but I don’t think anything happened I think it was strictly false flag what do you think

If it happened, if like the bodies were staged and there were bodies which were killed by anyway or if it was real and that these people died from chlorine certainly not its not the government of Syria.  They have no purpose. I’ll tell you one thing and it is something like very very logical for us here in the war and when we see the planes and see the bombings from a silo on us and either army have ways to kill hundred time much more people than using any barrel of chlorine they have crushed the bomb they’ve dropped 2 cluster bombs they can kill if they want like five hundred people it’s easy

It’s pretty obvious, it is pretty obvious for people living here must be pretty obvious

The people here, the purpose of the city and government the direction is not to kill the people but the people are stuck in military places and the problem is really hard for a lot of people today to imagine that yes about after everything we heard on television and everything we heard in the radio its really hard to imagine that what I’m saying today can be really I’m saying that for sure terrorists used chlorine I  found 13 a deliberation in the earth yeah my government I read

the intelligence report of my government and they say we have no proof that the terrorists used all got once you need a chlorine you had 100 of kilo right by Saudi Arabia right this is  everything. The truth doesn’t matter anymore this is really on purpose to build a pretext

Yes

Or eventually to show the international community doesn’t stay

Yeah

Any apart from the conflict or eventually to make a new stage on the war

Yeah thank you very much