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Aleppo / AFP
The last residents hoping to leave rebel-held Aleppo waited in the snow on Wednesday as delays hit an evacuation that will leave Syria’s army in full control of the devastated city.
An AFP correspondent in the government-held neighbourhood of Ramussa—through which thousands of evacuees have passed in recent days—saw no convoys leaving the last pocket of opposition-controlled Aleppo on Wednesday morning.
Heavy snow was blanketing the city and swirling through crumbled buildings, adding to the misery of thousands still inside the last pocket of what was once a crucial stronghold of Syrian rebel forces.
Workers in the red uniforms of the Syrian Red Crescent, which has been helping with the evacuations, huddled by the side of the road, their white ambulances parked nearby barely visible in the snow.
At least 25,000 people have left rebel districts of Aleppo since opposition fighters agreed last week to withdraw from the city after years of fighting, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which is overseeing the operation.
The retreat from Aleppo—which had been divided into a rebel-held east and government-controlled west since 2012—marks the biggest victory for President Bashar al-Assad’s forces in nearly six years of civil war.
It follows a month-long army offensive and weeks of siege that killed hundreds and left rebels with less than 10 percent of the territory they once controlled in the city.
Convoys on hold
Brokered by regime ally Russia and opposition supporter Turkey, the evacuation plan has moved forward in fits and starts but appeared to be reaching its end.
On Tuesday soldiers used loudspeakers to warn remaining fighters and civilians it was time to leave eastern districts.
A military source said the army was expected to enter the rebel enclave “to clean the area after the fighters leave”.
Ahmad al-Dbis, who heads a team of doctors and volunteers coordinating evacuations, said around 150 people had been able to leave at dawn on Wednesday in two buses and three ambulances.
But more were still waiting, with a convoy of 31 buses and about 100 other vehicles being prepared in rebel territory, Dbis said.
It was unclear how many civilians remained inside east Aleppo, though Dbis said there were “a few thousand” who were still hoping to leave.
As part of the evacuation deal, some residents were being evacuated in parallel from Fuaa and Kafraya, two Shiite-majority villages in northwestern Syria besieged by rebels, who are mainly Sunni Muslims.
Shiite-dominated Iran—another key Assad ally—was reported to have insisted on the evacuations of Fuaa and Kafraya for the Aleppo withdrawal to go ahead.
About 750 people have so far been able to depart from the villages, according to the ICRC.
A Syrian military source said that delays in evacuations from Aleppo were “procedural” and connected with the need to “synchronise” operations in the two villages.
“More than 1,700 people are waiting to leave Fuaa and Kafraya,” the source said.
Russia, Iran, Turkey take lead
The evacuation of Aleppo’s rebel sector is seen as a pivotal moment in a war that has killed more than 310,000 people and triggered a major humanitarian and refugee crisis.
As well as handing a major victory to Assad, it has given fresh energy to international efforts to end the conflict.
Russia, Iran and Turkey agreed on Tuesday to guarantee Syria peace talks and backed expanding a ceasefire in the country, laying down their claim as the main powerbrokers in the conflict.
In a joint statement, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the Aleppo evacuation should finish within “one or two days”.
Repeated diplomatic attempts—including several rounds of peace talks in Geneva—have failed to resolve Syria’s conflict, but UN envoy Staffan de Mistura has said he hopes to convene new negotiations in Geneva in February.
The United States, another supporter of the opposition, has for years been a key player in the diplomatic efforts but has been largely excluded from involvement in the evacuation effort.
With President Barack Obama in his final weeks in office, Lavrov on Tuesday praised the Turkey-Iran-Russia format on Syria as the “most effective” way forward.
In a rare show of international unity, the UN Security Council did on Monday unanimously adopt a French-drafted resolution to monitor the Aleppo evacuations.
The government and other parties on the ground agreed to allow 20 observers to be sent to east Aleppo to monitor evacuations, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said, but it was unclear when they would be able to deploy.
In Idlib, displaced Syrians bemoan ‘open-air prison’
Idlib/ AFP
Tens of thousands of displaced Syrians say they have become trapped in an “open-air prison” in the northwestern province of Idlib which they fear will be the army’s next target.
Rebels and civilians who have sought refuge in the opposition-held province, most recently from second city Aleppo, say they are suffering from skyrocketing prices and overpopulation. At least 25,000 people, including rebel fighters, have left east Aleppo since Thursday under an evacuation deal that will see the city come under full government control. Many of them have headed to neighbouring Idlib province to stay with relatives or in displacement centres.
“We did not want to leave our land, but they used every weapon available to force us out,” says Abu Mohammad, a father of four from east Aleppo.
“Now they’ve prepared a prison for us in order to besiege us and bombard us,” he adds, speaking to AFP in a camp hosting around 100 displaced families.
Idlib city has been held since March 2015 by a coalition of rebels led by the group Ahrar al-Sham and the former Al-Qaeda affiliate Fateh al-Sham Front.
Since then, tens of thousands of people from across the country have flooded the province. The UN office for humanitarian affairs, OCHA, estimates that 700,000 internally displaced people have found shelter in Idlib since Syria’s war erupted nearly six years ago.
‘Tough’ life in Idlib
Many of those displaced to Idlib are fleeing government bombardment or evacuating besieged areas under local deals with the regime.
These “reconciliation” agreements typically see rebels and civilians bussed out of a town in exchange for an end to shelling or siege by government troops.
In addition to Aleppo, six other towns near Damascus have been evacuated in the last several months, including Daraa and Moadamiyet al-Sham. The influx to Idlib has had an overwhelming effect on everyday life, with the cost of rents and basic food skyrocketing and shortages becoming a common reality.
Abu Yazan al-Ramah, a fighter who arrived in April from the besieged rebel town of Zabadani near the Lebanese border, says living in Idlib was “tough”.
“It’s expensive. There are some things you can’t find or at times they are unaffordable,” says the 30-year-old who has joined up with a local rebel group in order to survive.
Continuing to work with rebel groups is often the only way that displaced men can secure shelter or food. According to Abu Zeid, a rebel who was wounded near Damascus, armed groups often provide newly displaced fighters in Idlib with free housing, clothes, food “and sometimes money”.
Even local business owners in Idlib are struggling to respond to the soaring needs.
“The population increased and so has demand,” says grocery shop owner Jalal al-Ahmad. Ahmad says he buys his merchandise mainly from neighbouring Turkey but admits that when he is stuck, he gets supplies from regime-held areas.
Syrian girl blogger, 7, meets Erdogan at Ankara palaceÂ
Ankara / AFP
Seven-year-old Bana al-Abed, whose Twitter account gave a tragic description of the bombing of Aleppo in Syria, on Wednesday met Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at his palace in Ankara.
Erdogan received Bana and her family at his palace, the state-run Anadolu agency said, publishing a picture of Erdogan hugging the girl.
A video published by the agency also showed a seated Erdogan holding Bana and an unidentified boy sitting on his knees, flanked by his wife Emine.
The young Syrian girl was one of thousands of people evacuated from once rebel-held areas of Aleppo in the last days under a deal brokered by Turkey and Russia.
She was evacuated on Monday and Turkish officials promised she would come to Turkey with her family. But it was not clear when she had crossed over.
For her 330,000 followers, Bana is a symbol of the tragedy unfolding in Syria, although Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad’s regime has slammed her and her mother’s nearly daily tweets as propaganda.
Turkey is hosting some 2.7 million refugees from the Syria conflict but has made clear it now prefers to look after those recently displaced, who are not injured, on the Syrian side of the border.
Three Turkish soldiers killed in fight for Syria
IS-held town
Istanbul / AFP
Three Turkish soldiers were killed and 11 wounded in clashes with IS extremists in Syria on Wednesday as the military faces increasing resistance from the extremists in a battle to take a key town, reports said.
The IS-held town of Al Bab, 25 kilometres (15 miles) from the Turkish border, has become the main target of the army’s more than three-month campaign inside Syria in support of pro-Ankara Syrian rebels.
One of the wounded was in a serious condition, the Dogan news agency reported. It said the deaths came in clashes with IS extremists which were ongoing.
The Amaq news agency, affiliated to IS, said a suicide attack was carried out against the Syrian rebels and Turkish troops west of Al Bab, without giving further details.
After the lightning speed of the earlier campaign that saw the border town of Jarabulus taken on the first day of the offensive, the Turkish army has suffered increasing casualties in the fight for Al Bab.
Around two dozen Turkish soldiers are believed to have lost their lives since Ankara launched its operation Euphrates Shield in August, with most of the deaths blamed on IS attacks.