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Hundreds Flee to Government-held Districts in Aleppo

by VOA News

   BEIRUT --

   Hundreds of people in the war-torn Syrian city of Aleppo are reported
   to have fled rebel-held areas to districts that are now under
   government control.

   The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors
   and reports on the country's nearly six-year civil war, said at least
   400 refugees escaped to the Masakan Hanano district after government
   forces recaptured the neighborhood.

   "It is the first exodus of this kind from east Aleppo since 2012,"
   Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said.

   Syria said its Russia-backed army gained "full control" of Masakan
   Hanano, a key rebel-held district in Aleppo, after 13 days of heavy
   combat.

   According to reports, the Observatory said there are still an estimated
   250,000 civilians trapped in rebel-held eastern Aleppo. Families are
   facing serious food and fuel shortages.

   State media also said army engineering units in the Masakan Hanano
   district were seen dismantling mines and other explosive devices
   planted by rebels who seized control of eastern Aleppo in 2012 as part
   of a push to topple the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

   "The armed forces retook full control of Masakan Hanano after having
   put an end to the presence of terrorists there," state television
   reported.

   Western analysts have for days stressed the strategic significance of
   Masakan Hanano, the largest district in eastern Aleppo, warning that
   its fall would place government forces in position to cut off northern
   parts of the rebel-held sector from the rest of the opposition-held
   districts.

   The Observatory said last week that the imminent fall of Masakan Hanano
   would give the government regime a line of fire control over several
   other neighborhoods.

   Rahman also warned that the fall of Masakan Hanano would allow the
   government to isolate northern parts of eastern Aleppo from the rest of
   the opposition-held districts, effectively splitting eastern Aleppo in
   two.

   Government ground forces began a push into Masakan Hanano last week,
   after days of an intensive bombing campaign by Syrian and Russian
   warplanes.

   Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told the
   U.N. Security Council last week that nearly 300 civilians had been
   killed in eastern Aleppo in the preceding week. Dozens more have been
   reported killed since then.

   "The reality is that the [government] regime and Russia are continuing
   their 'starve, get bombed or surrender' strategy in eastern Aleppo,"
   she said on November 21.

   Moscow and Damascus have routinely described the fight against rebels
   in eastern Aleppo as a battle against terrorists, despite the sector's
   vast civilian population trapped in the city since renewed fighting
   erupted in September. Both governments have used that characterization
   to justify the deadly and apparently indiscriminate bombings in the
   sector since then.

   Western governments and the United Nations have framed the Aleppo
   onslaught as a vast humanitarian crisis that threatens the safety of at
   least 250,000 civilians believed trapped in the mayhem. Diplomats and
   human rights organizations argue that both Moscow and Damascus could
   face war crimes inquiries for their roles in the destruction of eastern
   Aleppo.