State forces oust Syrian rebels from enclave amid humanitarian ordeal

BEIRUT: Almost a third of the Syrian rebel enclave in the eastern sector of Aleppo has fallen to government forces in two days, forcing 10 000 civilians to flee, a monitoring group said yesterday.

Since Saturday, rebels have lost the entire northern part of the enclave, their worst defeat since they seized the east of Syria’s largest city in 2012, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel-Rahman said.

Residents said people in the area were desperately seeking refuge, as the Observatory reported heavy air raids throughout the day killing at least six.

Rebel defences in the northern part of the enclave appear to have collapsed suddenly after holding up during a fivemonth siege. The government’s stranglehold was broken only for a few weeks in August by rebel forces who fought their way in from outside the city.

Some 6 000 civilians crossed into the Kurdish-controlled Sheikh Maqsoud district, the Observatory said. Others entered government-controlled areas of the city.

Ibrahim Ibrahim, a Kurdish official, said fighters in Sheikh Maqsoud were aiding fleeing residents.

“The forces there are dealing with children, women, pregnant women,” Ibrahim said. “It’s a moral and humanitarian duty, and a patriotic duty, they are Syrians in the end.”

Eastern Aleppo has been devastated by four years of heavy government shelling and air strikes, which have repeatedly hit civilian facilities and, according to Doctors without Borders, put at least eight of the area’s nine hospitals out of action.

The UN on Sunday said negotiations were still under way with all parties to the conflict to implement a humanitarian plan for Aleppoto allow food aid and medical staff to be brought in. It also called for the wounded to be evacuated.

UN envoy Jan Egeland last week said rebels had agreed to the plan, but the consent of Syria and its Russian ally was still pending.

The UN described the food situation in the east as “particularly alarming” after World Food Programme partner organisations exhausted their stockpiles on November 13, leaving the enclave “effectively…without any available food”.

The UN also noted an increase in rebel shelling on government-held western Aleppo, where, it said, partner organisations had now registered more than 21 000 displaced people.

Abdel-Rahman said it was not yet clear whether government forces would immediately mount a push into eastern Aleppo.

It is the last remaining major urban centre in the hands of the Syrian opposition. Recapturing it would be a symbolic victory for the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

It would also allow the regime to deploy its limited forces elsewhere, raising the prospect of further pressure on the remaining rebel strongholds.

In a sign that government forces are also on the advance in the outskirts of Damascus, yesterday saw some 350 rebels evacuated from the town and Palestinian refugee camp of Khan al-Shieh some 20km south-west of the capital.

The fighters and their families were being bused to the opposition stronghold of Idlib after surrendering their weapons, a government official said.

The deal is the latest of several as government forces wrap up resistance in Damascus.

According to UN figures, almost 5 million people have fled the country and another 6 million are displaced internally, out of a pre-war population of about 22 million.