(Zaman Al Wasl)- The rapid advances of Syrian regime forces and allied militias in northern Aleppo province have sparked fears of the United Nations and Turkey of an imminent siege and new exodus of refugees fleeing a Russian-backed assault.
The U.N. expressed on Tuesday its worries that the regime advance could cut off the last link for civilians in rebel-held parts of Aleppo with the main Turkish border crossing, which has long served as the lifeline for insurgent-controlled territory, Reuters reported.
"It would leave up to 300,000 people, still residing in the city, cut off from humanitarian aid unless cross-line access could be negotiated," the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.
Meanwhile, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said as many as a million refugees could arrive if the Russian-Syrian campaign continues. Fifty thousand people had reached Turkey's borders in the latest wave and Ankara was admitting people in a "controlled fashion", he said.
The U.N. World Food Programme said in a statement it had begun food distribution in the Syrian town of Azaz near the Turkish border for the new wave of displaced people.
Residents of rebel-held Aleppo city told Zaman al-Wasl that the expected siege will be a new scenario of starvation and slow death. But they assured their trust in rebels who will foil the vicious assault.
“We will not leave our houses, we will resist to the end, we do not worry about siege, if it happened, our souls would not be more valuable than the rebels’ who fight at battle fields to defend us in the North Countryside of Aleppo”, Abo Mohammed added.
Haj Abdo, a food vender in a popular market in Mashhad neighborhood explained that prices had witnessed a slight raise due to fuel prices, but despite all that, almost everything is available, bread, fruit, vegetables and other food products.
Haj Abdo said that sales still the same, people usually buy what they need, may be due to lack of money as most of them hardly afford their daily needs.
“I cannot stay here watching my kids crying of hunger and I am not able to do anything to them, we have no support apart from my 15-year old son, who works in selling biscuit to afford for a bag of bread for us” said Om Ahmed, who was preparing herself to leave her house toward countryside of Idlib.
She added that she was planning to cross borders to Turkey once her son collected enough money, if she was lucky enough to escape the Russian air strikes.
Russian air attacks in the area around Aleppo have succeeded in weakening the rebels’ stronghold in the North countryside of Aleppo, enabling Syrian regime and loyalist forces led by Hezbollah and Shiite militias to advance towards the rebels-held areas on the city. All that led to closing the only route through North countryside of Aleppo, which put residents of Aleppo under risk of siege.
At least 260,000 Syrian people have been killed since revolution erupted in March 2011 and more than 12 million have been displaced.
Comments About This Article
Please fill the fields below.