Aleppo, previously one of Syria’s largest, most prosperous and industrial cities is now in ruins.

Northern Syrian city, Aleppo, has been a major battle ground between Assad’s forces and the Syrian rebels since 2012.

On November of 2016, Assad’s forces launched a new attack that pushed back almost all of the rebels’ progress. By mid December nearly all of the Syrian rebels were concentrated in a few small neighborhoods. By December 13 over 90% of Aleppo had fallen to the Syrian government. Hundreds of thousands of people were trapped, while others were fleeing Syria, adding to the major humanitarian refugee crisis.

Thousands of civilians fled the now government-controlled regions. Hundreds have gone missing and others aren’t allowed to leave their homes.

The small enclave formed in November, where Syrian rebels and civilians we’re trapped was heavily bombed until a cease-fire was reached.

December 15 showed mercy for both the government civilians and rubbles as a cease-fire was reached. The cease-fire agreement was negotiated between Turkey (rebels ally) and Russia (Syrian government’s ally).

Several other cease-fires, like this one have miserably failed, and resulted in more fighting. Under the terms of Aleppo’s negotiation, The enclave of civilians and rebels were evacuated into Idlib (rebel province). Cnn article Aleppo: New ceasefire deal reached states that “According to Ahmad Qurah Ali, spokesman for the Ahrar al-Sham rebel group, the deal was reached late Wednesday and will permit injured people to be evacuated beginning in the morning.”

Aleppo’s ceasefire reached in December, whose goal was to evacuate rebels and civilians from Aleppo, has failed since its launch, but will hopefully see future progress.