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​Aleppo Is About To Fall And A Humanitarian Disaster Is Feared

​Aleppo Is About To Fall And A Humanitarian Disaster Is Feared

The crisis is unimaginably sad.

Anonymous

Anonymous

The ongoing civil war in Syria has taken a decisive and potentially catastrophic turn this week with the capture of the vast majority of Eastern Aleppo by Syrian government forces.

What was once the major holdout of the Syrian rebels is now 98 percent in the hands of the government. The forces of President Bashar al-Assad, assisted heavily by the Russian Air Force, Shia Hezbollah fighters and Iranian combatants, look very likely to take control of the whole city in the coming days.

The outlook for those living in the east is far from good. Mass casualties are expected from the intense fighting that will be required to take the remaining rebel-held districts of the city. There are an estimated 80,000 civilians living in the roughly two square miles who are still holding out, districts which have already endured months of siege and suffered enormous destruction.

Medical supplies are at critically low levels and there are reports of civilians being forced to take on the role of medical professionals as doctors and nurses are attacked, arrested or forced to flee the city. Corpses are said to be lying in the streets, as the bombardment is too intense for residents to bury them, and more than 100 children are reported as possibly being trapped under a building.

Russian soldiers remove mines in Aleppo; Credit: Ruptly

The United Nations has reported mass execution of countless civilians by forces loyal to President Assad on Tuesday afternoon, an act described by their spokesman, Rupert Colville, as a "complete meltdown of humanity".

The mistreatment of civilians by the Syrian Army is far from a new aspect of the Battle for Aleppo, but the recent incursion and endgame of the battle appears to have taken them to new heights. In late November, German Chancellor Angela Merkel accused Bashar al-Assad of intentionally bombing hospitals and it has long been the case that rebel-held areas have been targeted by chemical weapons, including chlorine-laced barrel-bombs dropped from helicopters, and inevitably causing huge civilian casualties.

US President Barack Obama has also accused Assad of war crimes, a claim backed up by war-monitoring association the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which currently charts the number of civilian deaths in the conflict as close to half a million.

The scale of the humanitarian disaster that is unfolding in Aleppo has prompted comparisons to Srebrenica and Rwanda, largely due to the role that the United Nations is playing in the conflict. One of the key demands of activists, NGOs and Aleppo residents is that a corridor be opened up to evacuate civilians from the besieged areas. There are countless reports coming from within the east of the city via Twitter, posting their final goodbyes and calling for an opportunity to leave.

Aleppo
Aleppo

Syrian army soldiers fire their weapons during a battle; Credit: PA

The White Helmets - a group of volunteers who have been involved in rescue operations ever since the siege of Aleppo began and who were recently nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of their work - say that 90 percent of their equipment is unusable and that they can only operate one medical outpost.

According to the United Nations, a corridor could be established that would allow the evacuation of the 80,000 civilians trapped within the city. The last remaining rebel holdouts are just four kilometres from other rebel-held areas, but passage through this short distance necessarily involves transit through regime territory. The UN is pushing for a short ceasefire to allow civilians to leave and to help those already injured.

A meeting of the UN Security Council, called by France and hosted by Secretary General Ban-Ki-Moon, will take place in New York on Tuesday evening to discuss the issue, but it seems unlikely that it will be successful, as Russia remains fully behind Assad and has vetoed six previous resolutions on Syria.

Aleppo
Aleppo

Smoke rises in an east Aleppo neighborhood as the sun rises; Credit: PA

The fall of Aleppo is far from the end of the Syrian Civil War. The Assad regime still controls around only a third of the country's land. The current population of Syria is impossible to say due to the huge refugee crisis that has come with the escalation of the war. An estimated 11 million have fled their homes, with 6.6m internally displaced within Syria and 4.8m fleeing into neighbouring nations such as Turkey and Lebanon and a million to Europe.

Meanwhile, Daesh (ISIS) continues to control huge swathes of the east (crossing over into Iraq), the Kurds control almost the entire northern border and the rebels have pockets in the south near Jordan and to the west and north of Aleppo. As ever with the Syrian Civil War, the outlook is murky and complicated and certainly terrible for all the civilians that remain in the country.

Words By Mike Meehall Wood

Russian soldiers checks a burned medical tent after rebels launched a mortar shell at a field hospital in west Aleppo; Featured Image Credit: PA

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Topics: Syria