A new effort to evacuate thousands of civilians and opposition fighters from the remaining rebel-held districts of the Syrian city of Aleppo started on Thursday, one day after a previous attempt collapsed amid fresh violence.
Hundreds of families, including children and wounded adults, gathered in the rebel enclave with bags and blankets, while lines of ambulances and green buses crossed from the city’s government-held side to pick them up. Later in the day, the first wave of evacuees had reached Aleppo’s government-held side.
If successful, the evacuation deal would mark a major turning point in Syria’s nearly six-year conflict. Since early in the war, Aleppo, once Syria’s industrial center, has been split, with the government holding the west and rebels holding many neighborhoods in the east.
But military aid for the Syrian government from Iran, Russia and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah turned the tide in the government’s favor, allowing it to surround the rebels.
The loss of any foothold in Aleppo would be a major blow to the opposition, which would then hold sway in only one of Syria’s provincial capitals, Idlib, where the Syrian branch of Al Qaeda is a major force.
The evacuation deal was reached between Russia, which backs the Syrian government, and Turkey, which backs the rebels, after months of airstrikes and heavy shelling that left entire neighborhoods in ruins and killed hundreds of people. Rebels in the east also shelled government-held areas, killing civilians there, too.
The evacuation began Wednesday morning but soon collapsed when militia fighters allied to the Syrian government and unhappy with the deal opened fire on vehicles bringing people out, according to opposition activists.
Evacuation efforts were due to restart Thursday morning, with apparent modifications to the plan. Syrian state news media reported that buses and ambulances were on their way to evacuate residents from two Shiite villages in neighboring Idlib Province that have long been surrounded by Sunni rebels. The two villages, Fua and Kfraya, were not originally part of the evacuation deal, which is apparently why the pro-government gunmen stopped the evacuees from leaving on Wednesday. The apparent moves to evacuate the villages suggested that they had been added to the deal to ensure that people in eastern Aleppo would be allowed to leave.
Then new gunfire inside Aleppo hindered the start of the evacuation there. Maan al-Shanan, an antigovernment activist in the east of the city said that pro-government forces had opened fire on rescue workers who were clearing rubble from the road to allow buses and ambulances to pass, killing one person and wounding three others.
The White Helmets, a group of volunteer emergency workers, said on Twitter that one of its members had been struck by a bullet fired by a government sniper.
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SOURCE: NY Times, Ben Hubbard and Hwaida Saad
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