BBC: "We are dead." It was a terrifyingly simple assessment of the grim reality for Aleppo's residents.
Abu Stayf says he has lost his wife and six children; they were all killed when a rocket landed on his house.
Yet he refuses to leave. He sleeps in an abandoned basement on a street where rotting rubbish piles up and rubble from shelled buildings spills across the pavement.
Caught in a no-man's land between government forces and rebel fighters, he asks: "Where should I go? You'll die wherever you go. Our homes have been destroyed, our children are dead and we have no-one left."
The bakery just down the road was the target of a government attack a few weeks ago in which 20 people died, according to activists.
It was the final straw for many of the residents and most of them have now fled.
But Abu Stayf won't leave. He sits on a vinyl-covered chair with two friends while artillery shells crash in neighbouring streets; the sound and fury of gun battles breaking bouts of pregnant silence.
"We have no food, no water, no electricity. There is shelling every day, bombardment every day," he says. (+ video) » | Ian Pannell, BBC News, Aleppo | Monday, October 08, 2012
