In the corner of Afraa’s living room in Aleppo, her children whisper secrets to the dolls they’ve cut from scrap paper. Each is named after one of their dead friends, but the game brings them back to life. “They talk to them as if they’re alive,” Afraa, 35, said. “They tell them all their memories. It makes me weep.”Outside, the whining of planes and the boom of airstrikes split the air, shaking the house to its foundations. The rebel-held enclave of Aleppo, Syria's largest city, is under siege by forces allied to the Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad. The rebels are made up of a number of militia groups such as the free Syrian army – who oppose the Assad government – and Islamist factions such as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, which until recently was known as Jabhat al-Nusra, and is an al-Qaeda affiliate.The civil war in Syria has been ongoing since 2011, after al-Assad attempted to quash an uprising connected to the Arab Spring. 400,000 people are thought to have been killed by the war so far (according to UN estimates in April), with millions more displaced from their homes. Over the last month, more than 350 Aleppo civilians are thought to have died in a new bombing campaign by the Syrian government and their Russian backers – one which has largely targeted residential areas and hospitals.The windows and doors of Afraa's home are broken, glass still shattered across the floors after a bomb strike last month. They were lucky: next door, a whole family was buried under the rubble. As Wissam, Zain and three-year-old Nye play, Afraa’s phone chimes with messages from the Syrian government. They tell her that she’ll be safe if she leaves the besieged district of Aleppo – an apocalyptic ghost town of caved-in buildings – for regime-held areas. That her children will be able to live free from the fear of being crushed by the ruins of their home, or shot by a sniper. She doesn’t believe them.