“The moments we are living now in Aleppo could be the last moments of our lives,” Ameer al-Halabi wrote in a Messenger conversation last December to Al-Monitor. “Regime forces are a few meters from here: We could be killed or imprisoned once they enter, especially us … because we are journalists.”

A year after the “fall” of Aleppo, Al-Monitor wanted to reopen the conversations with all those journalists, media activists, photographers and citizens from Aleppo who had been the only ones to tell the world what was happening during the siege of eastern Aleppo and the last days before Syrian regime forces, supported by Russian airstrikes, retook the city from rebel forces’ control.

Halabi, whose real name is Walid Mashhadi but still uses his pseudonym professionally, is still alive. He was only 25 when he left his city to survive the Syrian regime. He lives in Turkey now, while his family, his wife and son, remained in Aleppo. But they will soon reunite in France. Halabi will travel there in January 2018, and his wife and son will join him the same day from Aleppo via Beirut. “I was studying engineering when the revolution started. I began going to the demonstrations against the [Bashar] al-Assad regime. Then, we the protesters soon understood it was important to work in the media. For example, I dropped out of university and worked for a local radio station, Radio Hara, and for the Aleppo Media Center in 2012 and 2013.”

Halabi also worked for international media and humanitarian organizations such as the Qatar Red Crescent. “My wife is still in eastern Aleppo and many checkpoints surround the area. They know she is my wife and so she doesn’t go out too much.”