Vol. 77/No. 41      November 18, 2013

Reuters/Yazan Homsy

More than 1 million Syrians live in neighborhoods under total or partial siege by forces backing the Bashar al-Assad regime. These tactics are aimed at isolating, starving and punishing largely working-class areas, where demonstrations against the regime broke out in 2011 and remain strongholds of the opposition. Above, sieged area of Homs Oct. 12. Those caught bringing food or medicine to besieged areas are imprisoned. Some 12,000 people remain in Mouadamiya, on the outskirts of Damascus, which was among the areas hit by chemical weapons strikes Aug. 21 that killed hundreds. The town, which is 90 percent destroyed, has been under siege for a year. Pro-government forces are also targeting farmers and their crops.

— JOHN STUDER