Thousands flee as rebels face last stand in eastern Aleppo
Defences begin to crumble in face of two-pronged attack by Syrian army and Kurds
BEIRUT— Simultaneous advances by Syrian government and Kurdish-led forces into eastern Aleppo on Sunday set off a tide of displacement inside the divided city, with thousands of residents evacuating their premises, and threatened to cleave the opposition’s enclave.
Rebel defences collapsed as government forces pushed into the city’s Sakhour neighbourhood, coming within one kilometre of commanding a corridor in eastern Aleppo for the first time since rebels swept into the city in 2012, according to Syrian state media and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) monitoring group.
Kurdish-led forces operating autonomously of the rebels and the government, meanwhile, seized the Bustan al-Basha neighbourhood, al- lowing thousands of civilians to flee the decimated district to the predominantly Kurdish Sheikh Maqsoud, in the city’s north, according to Ahmad Hiso Araj, an official with the Syrian Democratic Forces.
The government’s push, backed by thousands of Shiite militia fighters from Lebanon, Iraq and Iran and under the occasional cover of the Russian air force, has laid waste to Aleppo’s eastern neighbourhoods.
An estimated 250,000 people are trapped in wretched conditions in the city’s rebel-held eastern districts since the government sealed its siege of the enclave in late August. Food supplies are running perilously low, the United Nations warned Thursday, and a relentless air assault by government forces has damaged or destroyed every hospital in the area.
Residents in east Aleppo said in distressed messages on social media that thousands of people were fleeing to the city’s government-controlled western neighbourhoods, away from the government’s merciless assault, or deeper into opposi- tion-held eastern Aleppo.
“The situation in besieged Aleppo (is) very, very bad, thousands of eastern residents are moving to the western side of the city,” said Khaled Khatib, a photographer for the Syrian Civil Defence search-and-rescue group, also known as the White Helmets.
“Aleppo is going to die,” he posted on Twitter.
The Britain-based SOHR, which monitors the conflict through a network of local contacts, said about 1,700 civilians had escaped to government-controlled areas and another 2,500 to Kurdish authorities.
More than 250 civilians have been killed in the government’s bombardment of eastern Aleppo over past 13 days, according to SOHR.
Locals reported thousands more were moving within the eastern neighbourhoods, away from the front lines, but staying inside areas of opposition control.
“The conditions are terrifying” said 28-year-old Modar Sakho, a nurse in eastern Aleppo.