Return to Aleppo: 'We are in hell'

Editor's note: CNN's Nick Paton Walsh returned to the Syrian city of Aleppo recently where he saw severe devastation wrought by the ongoing civil war.

Aleppo, Syria (CNN) - The smell of burnt plastic leaps out at you. Acrid in the throat, omnipresent, extinguishing from the air all the other smells of city life - because really there is none. The scenes of destruction - the fact every street is pockmarked by two years of shelling - you have seen in activist videos online. But the smell is something striking: it notifies you that you are on the edge of humanity.

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