In September, we brought you a blog, Covering Syria through hunger and fear, in which AFP’s Aleppo’s correspondent, Karam al-Masri, gave an idea of what life was like in the besieged city and Rana Moussaoui, AFP’s deputy bureau chief in Beirut, shared what it was like to hear from Karam each day.

Below they tell of the Karam’s harrowing last days in Aleppo, the final chapter of his years of reporting from the ravaged city.

"I have lived and reported from the heart of peaceful, prosperous Germany for more than two decades but am still not entirely steeled to the jabs to the gut you can get walking through its public spaces," writes Berlin-based correspondent Deborah Cole.

"No one does memorials quite like the Germans, accosting you in the streets as you go about your business. Particularly in Berlin, the past is never the past, even in a city with a knack for constantly reinventing itself."