In March 2011, pro-democracy protests erupted in the southern Syrian city of Deraa, after the arrest and torture of some teenagers who painted revolutionary slogans on a school wall. Violence escalated and the country descended into civil war as rebel brigades were formed to battle government forces for control of cities, towns and the countryside. Fighting reached the capital Damascus and second city of Aleppo in 2012. The devastated city of Aleppo tells the story of its people, the dead and the injured, those who left and those who have remained. A city destroyed and a people dispersed.