ALEPPO, Syria: In the deserted market of Aleppo’s rebel-held east, once again besieged by government forces, a lone Syrian vendor weighs a withered bunch of purslane — virtually the only item for sale.
The stalls of Tariq al-Bab’s vegetable market are still organised in neat rows and shaded by tattered sheets.
But since a government advance this week cut off Aleppo’s eastern districts for the second time in two months, no food has entered the battered neighbourhood.
One man slouches behind an empty table as a teenage boy cycles past clutching a precious handful of parsley.
“This siege is much harder than the first one. During the first one, there were at least some products still in the market — now there’s nothing at all,” laments shopper Omar al-Beik.
“No products, no vegetables, no sugar. Nothing. We came to buy a few things to cook and we couldn’t find a thing,” he tells AFP.
Syria’s government forces first encircled eastern Aleppo in mid-July, sealing off the northern route used by the estimated 250,000 residents of the opposition-held neighbourhoods.
