Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Aleppo falls to Syrian government forces
Army retakes battered city from rebels.
DAMASCUS, Syria — After so much suffering, Aleppo is officially back under Syrian government control.
Syrian state TV announced Thursday that the evacuation of the city’s formerly rebel-controlled areas was complete, with the departure of the last opposition fighters and civilians from former strongholds in Aleppo’s eastern sector.
Rebels had held parts of the ancient crossroads city — much of it now a pulverized shell of itself — for nearly four years. Its fall is a major turning point in Syria’s multisided war, though the conflict is far from over.
The official end of the ferocious battle came via a Syrian army statement that was broadcast soon after the last four buses carrying fighters passed through the Ramousseh crossing amid bitter winter weather.
State television showed scenes of an eruption of celebratory gunfire and shouts of rejoicing from government forces and civilians in Aleppo’s western sector.
Aleppo’s humanitarian catastrophe was a paradox: The outside world was electrified by stories of desperate daily struggles on the part of those living there, often delivered firsthand via social media.
But at the same time, the drawn-out international hand-wringing — and repeated diplomatic demands for a lasting truce — did almost nothing to alleviate the carnage and hunger that stalked the city’s east amid months of intense Russian and Syrian bombardment.
With the city’s fall, the rebels will struggle to regroup and continue their battle against Syrian President Bashar Assad.
The end had long been in sight, with the final, painful denouement playing itself out over recent days.
Rebels had agreed last week to a surrender of their last bastions, setting in motion a fitful and perilous evacuation.
The United Nations said about 35,000 civilians and combatants had been part of the final exodus by foot, private vehicles and buses. More than 4,000 left in the past 24 hours, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Before the war, Aleppo was a thriving commercial center and Syria’s largest city, filled with architectural landmarks that had endured for thousands of years. Retaking the city, parts of which had been in rebel hands since 2012, marked Assad’s most significant victory against the opposition.
The Syrian leader, propped up for the past year by massive Russian firepower, has long characterized anyone opposed to his iron rule as a terrorist.
Despite the government announcement, the United Nations estimated that thousands more people remained in the former rebel areas. U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq, speaking in New York, cited the “traumatic” process of evacuation, saying civilians endured crowding, cold and repeated delays.
The devastation that became a watchword for the city will likely soon have a new backdrop: the northwestern city of Idlib, which U.N. envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura warned could be “the next Aleppo.”
Thousands of people who fled Aleppo have taken refuge there.