Evacuations began for hundreds of civilians from Syria’s eastern Aleppo on Thursday, but for many, fleeing their homes means leaving one warzone for another.
Most of the civilians will be taken to rebel-controlled area in the neighboring province of Idlib, one of the few remaining footholds rebel groups still have in the country — and most likely the regime’s next target for recapture. Rebel fighters were also being allowed to move there.
But while the world’s attention has been focused on Aleppo, Idlib has been pounded with regime airstrikes and dozens of deaths have been reported in recent weeks.
Latest developments
First evacuations have begun, with many civilians bound for Idlib province
Thousands of others remain in rebel-held Aleppo
Convoy carrying injured civilians came under fire, leaving one dead and four injured
Attack came as new ceasefire was agreed overnight
Syrian regime continued bombardment Wednesday, breaking an earlier truce, UN said
Grim choice for families
The grim choice of whether to stay or go is a difficult one for Abdulkafi al-Hamdo, an English teacher and activist with a 9-month-old daughter.
“I’m thinking of leaving. I’m thinking of what would happen if we didn’t leave,” he said.
If he does leave, he said he hopes his daughter would “come back to Aleppo as a young girl who knows the meaning of freedom.”
The evacuations began after previous attempts failed on Wednesday. A new ceasefire was agreed overnight after an earlier truce brokered by Turkey collapsed.
The evacuations are “three-pronged” — starting with the injured, the vulnerable, and rebel fighters and their families — said Special Advisor to the United Nations Special Envoy for Syria Jan Egeland.
Most would be taken to Idlib, he said, while others who choose to can go to Turkey.
The UN was not part of the evacuation agreements but has been given access to monitor the process, along with the International Committee of the Red Cross.
“It took 4,000 years, hundreds of generations, to build Aleppo. One generation managed to tear it down in four years,” Egeland said. Aleppo, for 3,000 years, gave to world civilization and world civilization was not there to assist the people of Aleppo when they needed us the most.”
UN human rights chief says resumed bombardment likely a war crime
Assad vows no pause
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad made clear on Wednesday that his army and its allied forces would not stop at Aleppo, opening rebel-held parts of Idlib to regime advances.
“There will be no pause, because this only happens in an area in which terrorists say that they are prepared to hand in their weapons or leave the area,” he told Russia 24, according to a translation by the Syrian state-run news agency SANA.
“Only then, military operations stop. Operations do not stop during negotiations, because we do not trust the terrorists, because they often say something and do the opposite. They used to ask for ceasefires only to strengthen their positions and obtain supplies consisting of weapons, ammunition.”
Sniper fire hits convoy
Earlier, one person was killed and four others injured when a truck carrying volunteer rescuers from the White Helmets group was shot at. It was attempting to clear a path for ambulances, according to Dr. Hamza al-Khateab, the manager of Aleppo’s al-Quds hospital. The ambulances also came under fire.
But the operation ground to a halt when a truck clearing a route for ambulances came under fire. Among those injured was Bebars Meshaal — chief officer of the White Helmets, also known as the self-styled Syrian Civil Defense — who lost his kidney in the attack, al-Khateab said.
“We went to al-Ramouseh and we were coordinating with the Russians. They said the road is clear, a truck entered to clear the road for the ambulances, fire (was) shot at the truck and the ambulances. I am in the hospital now and Bebars is in the operation room,” al-Khateab said.
The White Helmets and the Aleppo Media Center (AMC) activist group claim regime snipers were behind the attack.
CNN is unable to independently verify the details.
Meshaal is now in a stable condition, al-Khateab said.
The White Helmets confirmed on Twitter that a “volunteer” was “shot and injured by a regime sniper while clearing ambulance route in west Aleppo,” while the AMC also reported “direct fire by the Syrian regime” on the convoy.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said in a tweet that evacuations had resumed by the early afternoon, carrying 200 wounded people.
War crimes
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said that the continued bombardment of civilians on Wednesday, after the earlier truce had been agreed, likely constituted a war crime. The UN, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and several activists on the ground said regime airstrikes continued throughout the day.
“While the reasons for the breakdown in the ceasefire are disputed, the resumption of extremely heavy bombardment by the Syrian government forces and their allies on an area packed with civilians is almost certainly a violation of international law and most likely constitutes war crimes,” he said in a statement Wednesday.
The Syrian regime is on the brink of taking the whole city of Aleppo, having made sweeping gains in just over two weeks since its forces, backed by airstrikes, entered the enclave by ground.
If the regime does take control of the key city, it would mark a turning point in the brutal five-year civil war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people.
Rebel groups held eastern Aleppo for more than four years after the Arab Spring uprising, and a regime siege on the area had essentially cut it off from the outside world, sparking a humanitarian crisis there.
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