'He fell beside his daughter's body and wanted to be buried next to her it was heartbreaking. 'The father wasn’t at home when the attack happened, and he came back to find all of his family was gone. It took four days of constant digging to get their bodies out,' Jakal said. 'A few days ago, a family was pulled from the rubble of their home. The stream of the dead exacts a heavy toll on his mind. It is people like Jakal who must deal with their results.īut it is not just the labour that exhausts him. Moscow has boasted of the ' reliability' of its bombs. Rebel-held eastern Aleppo has faced relentless attacks since the failure of the September ceasefire from crude barrel bombs dropped by the air force of President Bashar al-Assad and high-tech weapons launched by his Russian backers. I would fall down crying when I first saw this but now, living it every day, it’s become unreal. 'During the last month we have worked as the shells fell - we could die while we are burying dead and be next to them, but we just keep working. 'It is miserable, hard work, which only gets harder - on many days I can barely rest, there are often 10 to 20 people to bury, every day,' Jakal tells Middle East Eye.

I envy the dead